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50M— May-54— Form    3 


ESSAYS  OF  A 
BIOLOGIST 


DUCTLESS    AND 
OTHER  GLANDS 

Fred  E.   Wynne,  M.  B. 

A  brief  description  of  the  results 
of  recent  research  into  the  physi- 
ology and  functions  of  the  ductless 
glands  and  the  application  of  this 
knowledge  to  the  prevention  and 
cure   of  disease. 


ESSAYS  0/ a  BIOLOGIST 


by 

JULIAN  HUXLEY 


New   York 

ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF 
1923 


COPTEIGHT,    1923,    BY    ALFEED    A.    KKOPF,    INC. 

Published  October,  192S 


Bet  up,  electrotyped,  printed  arid  lound  ly  the  Vail-Ballou  Press,  Inc.,  Binghamton,  N.  Y. 
Paper  furnished  hy  W.  F.  Etherington  &  Co.,  New  York. 


>IANUrACTUEED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


TO  MY  COLLEAGUES  AND  FRIENDS 

AT  THE  RICE  INSTITUTE 

HOUSTON,  TEXAS 


i3  «r^i'*;>/ 


PREFACE 

A  PREFACE  should  be  long,  like  one  of  Mr. 
Shaw's,  or  short.  I  propose  the  latter. 
The  essays  here  collected  were  written  on 
very  various  occasions.  This  must  excuse  the  con- 
siderable overlap  that  will  be  found  among  them. 
I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  attempt  to  get 
rid  of  this,  since,  though  facts  may  be  repeated,  the 
point  of  view  and  general  context  are  on  each  oc- 
casion different. 

Contrary  to  all  custom,  I  have  put  the  meat  courses 
at  the  two  ends  of  my  menu.  If  an  author  may  pre- 
sume to  advise  his  readers,  I  would  suggest  that, 
after  finishing  the  first  essay,  they  should  (if  they 
retain  a  stomach  for  more)  proceed  at  once  to  the 
last.  This  done,  they  will  find  the  others  all  in  a 
sense  lesser  variations  (if  I  may  change  my  meta- 
phor) upon  the  same  themes. 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  diversity  of  their  occa- 
sions, there  is  a  common  thread  running  through 
them,  a  common  background  of  ideas.  I  do  not 
know  whether  I  am  justified  in  calling  those  ideas 
especially  biological,  but  they  are  certainly  ideas 
which  must  present  themselves  to  any  biologist  who 

Til 


Vlll  PREFACE 

does  not  deliberately  confine  himself  to  the  tech- 
nicalities of  his  science. 

The  biologist  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the 
fact  that  his  science  to-day  is,  roughly  and  broadly 
speaking,  in  the  position  which  Chemistry  and  Phys- 
ics occupied  a  century  ago.  It  is  beginning  to  reach 
down  from  observation  to  experimental  analysis,  and 
from  experimental  analysis  to  grasp  of  principle. 
Furthermore,  as  the  grasp  of  principles  in  physico- 
chemical  science  led  speedily  to  an  immense  new  ex- 
tension both  of  knowledge  and  of  control,  so  it  is  not 
to  be  doubted  that  like  effects  will  spring  from  like 
causes  in  biology.  But  whereas  the  extension  of 
control  in  physics  and  chemistry  led  to  a  multiplica- 
tion of  the  number  of  things  which  man  could  do 
and  experience,  the  extension  of  control  in  biology 
will  inter  alia  mean  an  alteration  of  the  modes  of 
man's  experience  itself.  The  one,  that  is  to  say,  re- 
mained in  essence  a  quantitative  change  so  far  as 
concerns  the  real  life  of  man;  the  other  can  be  a 
qualitative  change.  Applied  physics  and  chemistry 
bring  more  grist  to  the  mill;  applied  biology  will 
also  be  capable  of  changing  the  mill  itself. 

The  possibilities  of  physiological  improvement,  of 
the  better  combination  of  existing  psychical  faculties, 
of  the  education  of  old  faculties  to  new  heights,  and 
of  the  discovery  of  new  faculties  altogether — all  this 
is  no  Utopian  silliness,  but  is  bound  to  come  about 
if  science  continues  her  current  progress. 

Take  but  one  example.     In  the  first  half  of  last 


PREFACE  IX 

century,  hypnotism,  or  mesmerism  as  it  was  then 
called,  was  in  complete  scientific  disrepute.  To-day, 
all  the  main  claims  of  its  founders  have  been  verified, 
and  many  new  facts  unearthed.  Every  text-book 
on  the  subject  will  tell  you  that  men  may  be  made 
insensible  to  pain  by  hypnosis  alone  without  any 
drug,  many  women  even  being  delivered  of  children 
under  its  influence  without  suffering.  Temperature 
can  be  changed,  blisters  raised,  and  many  other  proc- 
esses not  normally  under  the  control  of  the  will  can 
similarly  be  affected.  The  mind  can  be  raised  to  an 
abnormal  sensitiveness,  in  which  differences  between 
objects  that  are  completely  unrecognizable  in  ordi- 
nary waking  existence,  such  as  those  between  the 
backs  of  two  cards  in  a  pack,  may  be  easily  distin- 
guished. 

If  such  possibilities  are  open  to  the  empiricism  of 
the  hypnotist,  what  may  we  not  await  from  any  truly 
scientific  knowledge  of  mind,  comparable  even  in  low 
degree  to  our  knowledge  of,  say,  electricity? 

But  these  in  a  sense  are  all  details,  relevant  in  a 
way,  and  yet  only  details.  There  is  something  still 
more  fundamental  in  the  biologist's  attitude.  He 
has  to  study  evolution,  and  in  that  study  there  is 
brought  home  to  him,  more  vividly  than  to  any  one 
to  whom  the  facts  are  not  so  familiar,  that  in  spite  of 
all  appearances  to  the  contrary  there  has  been, 
throughout  the  whole  of  evolution,  and  most 
markedly  in  the  rise  of  man  from  his  pre-human  for- 
bears, a  real  advance,  a  progress. 


X  PREFACE 

He  sees  further  that  the  most  remarkable  single 
feature  in  that  progress  has  been  the  evolution  of 
self-consciousness  in  the  development  of  man.  That 
has  made  possible  not  only  innumerable  single 
changes,  but  a  change  in  the  very  method  of  change 
itself;  for  it  substituted  the  possibility  of  conscious 
control  of  evolution  for  the  previous  mechanism  of 
the  blind  chances  of  variation  aided  by  the  equally 
blind  sifting  process  of  natural  selection,  a  mecha- 
nism in  which  consciousness  had  no  part. 

Most  of  mankind,  now  as  in  the  past,  close  their 
eyes  to  this  possibility.  They  seek  to  put  off  their 
responsibility  on  to  the  shoulders  of  various  abstrac- 
tions which  they  think  can  bear  their  burden  well 
enough  if  only  they  are  spelt  with  a  capital  letter: 
— Fate — God — Nature — Law — Eternal  Justice — and 
such  like.  Men  are  educated  to  be  self-reliant  and 
enterprising  in  the  details  of  life,  but  dependent,  unre- 
flective,  laissez-faire  about  life  itself.  The  idea  that 
the  basis  of  living  could  be  really  and  radically  al- 
tered is  outside  most  people's  orbit;  and  if  it  is  forced 
upon  their  notice,  they  as  often  as  not  find  it  in  some 
way  immoral. 

Closely  connected  with  this,  in  a  sense  its  corollary, 
we  have  the  fact  that  ninety-nine  people  out  of  a 
hundred  are  concerned  with  getting  a  living  rather 
than  with  living,  and  that  if  for  any  reason  they  are 
liberated  from  this  necessity,  they  generally  have  not 
the  remotest  idea  how  to  employ  their  time  with 


PREFACE  XI 

either  pleasure  or  profit  to  themselves  or  to  others. 

There  are  two  ways  of  living:  a  man  may  be  casual 
and  simply  exist,  or  constructive  and  deliberately  try 
to  do  something  with  his  life.  The  constructive 
idea  implies  constructiveness  not  only  about  one's 
own  life,  but  about  that  of  society,  and  the  future 
possibilities  of  humanity. 

In  pre-human  evolution,  the  blind  chances  of  varia- 
tion and  the  blind  sifting  of  natural  selection  have  di- 
rected the  course  of  evolution  and  of  progress.  It 
is  on  survival  and  the  production  of  offspring  that 
the  process  has  hinged;  the  machinery  is  in  reality 
blind,  but  these  emerge  as  its  apparent  ends  or  pur- 
poses. The  realisation  of  ever  higher  potentialities 
of  living  substance  has  happened,  but  only  as  a  sec- 
ondary result  and  slow  by-product  of  the  main  proc- 
ess. 

In  human  evolution  up  till  the  present,  the  appar- 
ent ends  and  aims  have  for  the  most  part  and  in  the 
bulk  of  men  remained  the  same;  it  is  only  the  meth- 
ods of  pursuing  them  that  have  changed.  True  or 
conscious  purpose  comes  in  and  aids  the  unconscious 
biological  forces  already  at  work. 

However,  to  most  men  at  some  time,  and  to  some 
men  at  most  times,  these  purely  biological  ends  and 
purposes  of  life  become  altogether  inadequate.  They 
perceive  the  door  opened  to  a  thousand  possibilities 
higher  than  this,  all  demanding  to  be  satisfied.  The 
realization  of  what  for  want  of  a  better  term  we  can 


Xll  PREFACe 

call  spiritual  values  becomes  the  true  end  of  life, 
superposed  on  and  dominating  the  previous  biolog- 
ical values. 

When  civilizations  and  societies  are  organized  so 
that  their  prime  purpose  is  the  pursuit  of  spiritual 
values,  then  life  will  have  passed  another  critical 
point  in  its  evolution;  as  always,  what  has  gone  be- 
fore is  necessary  as  foundation  for  what  is  coming, 
and  the  biological  conditions  must  be  fulfilled  before 
the  new  and  higher  edifice  can  be  built;  but,  as  when 
the  mammals  superseded  the  reptiles,  so  this  change 
of  aim  will  mean  the  rise  of  a  new  type  to  be  the 
dominant  and  highest  form  of  life. 

This  can  only  come  about  so  far  as  man  consciously 
attempts  to  make  it  come  about.  His  evolution  up 
to  the  present  can  be  summed  up  in  one  sentence — 
that  through  his  coming  to  possess  reason,  life  in  his 
person  has  become  self-conscious,  and  evolution  is 
handed  over  to  him  as  trustee  and  director.  "Na- 
ture" will  no  longer  do  the  work  unaided.  Nature 
— if  by  that  we  mean  blind  and  non-conscious  forces 
— has,  marvellously,  produced  man  and  conscious- 
ness; they  must  carry  on  the  task  to  new  results 
which  she  alone  can  never  reach. 

Mr.  Trotter,  in  his  delightful  book  on  the  Herd- 
instinct,  draws  a  distinction  between  the  stable- 
minded  or  resistive  and  the  unstable-minded  or 
adaptive,  and  points  out  how  the  destinies  of  society 
have  usually  been  entrusted  to  the  former — whence 
spring  our  persecutions  of  prophets  and  our  neglect 
of  innovating  genius.     This  will  continue  so  long  as 


PREFACE  Xlll 

the  accepted  belief  of  the  majority  is  that  there  exists 
a  Providence  who  has  assigned  every  one  his  proper 
place,  or  even  (oddest  whim!)  ordained  the  present 
type  of  society;  so  long  as  they  rely  more  on 
authority  than  experience,  look  to  the  past  more 
than  to  the  future,  to  revelation  instead  of  reason, 
to  an  arbitrary  Governor  instead  of  to  a  discover- 
able order. 

The  general  conceptions  of  the  universe  which  a 
man  or  a  civilization  entertains  come  in  large  part 
to  determine  his  or  its  actions.  There  are  only  two 
general  and  embracing  conceptions  of  the  sort 
(though  any  number  which  are  not  general,  and  fail 
because  they  leave  out  whole  tracts  of  reality) :  in 
the  fewest  possible  words,  one  is  scientific,  the  other 
unscientific;  one  tries  to  use  to  its  fullest  extent  the 
intellect  with  which  we  have  been  evolved,  the  other 
does  not.  The  thread  running  through  most  of  these 
essays  is  the  attempt  to  discover  and  apply  in  certain 
fields  as  much  as  possible  of  this  scientific  conception 
to  several  different  fields  of  reality. 

Of  these  essays,  "Progress"  has  already  appeared  in 
the  Hibhert  Journal,  "Biology  and  Sociology"  in  the 
Monist,  "Us  n'ont  que  de  Tame"  and  Philosophic 
Ants"  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  "Rationalism  and 
the  Idea  of  God"  in  the  Rationalist  Press  Annual, 
and  "Religion  and  Science"  in  Science  and  Civiliia- 
tion,  this  year's  representative  of  the  annual  "Unity" 
series  edited  by  Mr.  F.  S.  Marvin  and  published  by 
the  Oxford  University  Press.    They  have  all,  how- 


Xiv  PREFACE 

ever,  been  considerably  revised  and  enlarged  before 
appearing  in  the  present  volume.     I  have  to  thank 
the  proprietors  and  publishers  for  kindly  permitting 
me  to  reprint  these. 
Oxford, 
April  1923. 


CONTENTS 


I      PROGRESS,  BIOLOGICAL  AND  OTHER 


II      BIOLOGY  AND  SOCIOLOGY  69 


III      ILS    N  ONT    QUE    DE    LAME:      AN    ESSAY    ON    BIRD- 
MIND  107 


IV      SEX  BIOLOGY  AND  SEX  PSYCHOLOGY  133 


V      PHILOSOPHIC  ANTS:   A   BIOLOGIC   FANTASY  177 


yi      RATIONALISM  AND  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD  207 


yil      RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE:  OLD  WINE  IN  NEW  BOTTLES  235 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER 


EVOLUTION:  AT  THE  MIND'S  CINEMA 

I  turn  the  handle  and  the  story  starts: 
Reel  after  reel  is  all  astronomy, 
Till  life,  enkindled  in  a  niche  of  sky, 

Leaps  on  the  stage  to  play  a  million  parts. 

Life  leaves  the  slime  and  through  all  ocean  darts; 

She  conquers  earth,  and  raises  wings  to  fly; 

Then  spirit  blooms,  and  learns  how  not  to  die, — 
Nesting  beyond  the  grave  in  others'  hearts. 

— I  turn  the  handle:  other  men  like  me 
Have  made  the  film:  and  now  I  sit  and  look 
In  quiet,  privileged  like  Divinity 
To  read  the  roaring  world  as  in  a  book. 

If  this  thy  past,  where  shall  thy  future  climb, 
0  Spirit,  built  of  Elements  and  Time! 

Munich,  Jan.  1923. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND  OTHER 

"Usus  et  impigrae  simul  experientia  mentis 
Paulatim  docuit  pedetemtim  progredientes." 

— Lucretius. 

"As  natural  selection  works  solely  by  and  for  the  good  of  each 
being,  all  corporeal  and  mental  environments  will  tend  to  pro- 
gress towards  perfection."  — Charles  Darwin. 

"Social  progress  means  the  checking  of  the  cosmic  process  at 
every  step  and  the  substitution  for  it  of  another  which  may  be 
called  the  ethical  process."  — T.   H.   Huxley. 

"It  is  probable  that  what  hindered  Kant  from  broaching  his 
theory  of  progress  with  as  much  confidence  as  Condorcet  was  his 
perception  that  nothing  could  be  decisively  affirmed  about  the 
course  of  civilization  until  the  laws  of  its  movement  had  been 
discovered.  He  saw  that  this  was  a  matter  for  future  scientific 
investigation."  — J.  B.  Bury. 

WHAT  is  the  most  fundamental  need  of  man? 
It  would  be  interesting  to  conduct  a  plebis- 
cite of  such  a  question,  a  plebiscite  of  the 
same  sort  that  was  conducted  by  one  of  the  French 
newspapers  some  years  ago,  to  discover  the  opinions 
of  its  readers  as  to  who  was  the  greatest  Frenchman 
of  the  century. 

When  I  say  the  most  fundamental  need  of  man,  I 
do  not  mean  those  basic  needs  for  food  and  drink 
and  shelter  which  he  shares  with  the  animals:  I 
mean  the  most  fundamental  to  him  as  man,  as  an 

3 

D.  H.  HILL  LIBRARY 
North  Carolina  State  College 


4  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

organism  differing  from  all  other  organisms  in  the 
power  of  thought,  in  reflection  and  self-consciousness. 
What  variety  of  answers  would  be  given,  I  dare  not 
guess;  but  I  hazard  the  belief  that  the  majority,  if 
the  suggestion  were  put  before  them,  would  agree 
that  his  deepest  need  was  to  discover  something, 
some  being  or  power,  some  force  or  tendency,  which 
was  moulding  the  destinies  of  the  world — something 
not  himself,  greater  than  himself,  with  which  he  yet 
felt  that  he  could  harmonize  his  nature,  in  which  he 
could  repose  his  doubts,  through  faith  in  which  he 
could  achieve  confidence  and  hope. 

That  need  has  been  felt  by  all  those  to  whom  life 
has  been  more  than  a  problem  of  the  unreflective 
satisfaction  of  instincts  and  desires — however  pure 
those  instincts,  or  beautiful  those  desires;  it  has  been 
felt  by  all  in  whom  the  problem  of  existence  has 
been  apprehended  by  intellect  and  disinterested 
imagination. 

I  say  all.  There  may  be  rare  creatures  who,  se- 
cure in  strength  of  body  and  mind  and  in  unham- 
pered unfolding  of  their  faculties,  possess  a  confi- 
dence by  which  this  need  is  never  felt.  They  are 
like  those  whom  Wordsworth  drew  for  us  in  the  "Ode 
to  Duty"  :— 

"There  are  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 
Be  on  them;  who,  in  love  and  truth, 
Where  no  misgiving  is,  rely 
Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth: 
Glad  hearts!  without   reproach  or  blot; 
Who  do  thy  work  and  know  it  not." 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  5 

But  such  are  rare;  or  should  we  say  that  their  type 
of  mind,  though  not  uncommon  in  the  earlier  years 
of  life,  only  by  the  rarest  chance  achieves  its  course 
without  a  descent  into  that  vale  where  the  finite  hu- 
man intellect  grapples  unequally  with  infinite  prob- 
lems? 

The  need  has  been  felt  in  all  ages  and  in  all  coun- 
tries; and  the  answers,  the  partial  satisfactions  of 
the  needs  which  have  been  found  by  the  mind  of 
men,  are  correspondingly  diverse. 

Savages  have  endowed  the  objects  around  them, 
living  and  inanimate,  with  supernatural  qualities. 
At  a  higher  grade  of  development  they  have  created 
gods  made  with  hands,  visible  images  of  their  fears 
or  their  desires,  by  whose  worship  and  service  they 
assuaged  the  urgent  need  within  their  breast.  Still 
later,  turning  from  such  crudity,  they  became  serv- 
ants and  worshippers  of  unseen  gods,  conceived  un- 
der the  form  of  persons,  but  persons  transcending  hu- 
man personality,  beings  in  whom  was  vested  the  con- 
trol of  man  and  of  the  world. 

Up  to  this  point  there  had  been  an  increase  of 
spirituality  in  the  constructions  by  which  human 
thought  satisfied  its  need;  none  the  less,  the  ideas 
underlying  the  mode  of  these  constructions  had  not 
materially  altered.  As  Voltaire  so  pungently  put  it, 
man  had  created  God  in  his  own  image. 

What  remains?  there  remains  to  search  in  the  ex- 
ternal world,  to  find  there  if  possible  a  foundation  of 
fact  for  the  belief  drawn  from  the  inner  world  of 


6  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

mind,  to  test  the  conceptions  of  a  supreme  being  or 
supereminent  power  against  ever  more  and  more 
touchstones  of  reality,  until  the  most  sceptical  shall 
acknowledge  that  the  final  construction  represents, 
with  whatever  degree  of  incompleteness,  yet  not  a 
mere  fragment  educed  to  fill  a  void,  however  inevi- 
table, to  satisfy  a  longing,  however  natural,  but  the 
summary  and  essence  of  a  body  of  verifiable  fact, 
having  an  existence  independent  of  the  wishes  or 
ideals  of  mankind. 

It  was  the  striving  after  some  such  certainty  that 
led  Matthew  Arnold  to  his  famous  definition  of  God 
as  "something,  not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  right- 
eousness." Dissatisfaction  with  the  assertion  that 
belief  in  a  very  special  and  undemonstrable  form  of 
Divinity  was  necessary  as  an  act  of  faith  has,  in  a 
large  measure,  helped  the  widespread  revulsion 
against  orthodox  Christianity.  It  was  the  need  for 
some  external,  ascertainable  basis  for  belief  which 
led  such  different  minds  as  William  James  and  H.  G. 
Wells  to  approach  religion,  and  in  such  diverse  ways 
as  in  the  "Varieties  of  Religious  Experience"  and  in 
"God  the  Invisible  King."  It  is  this  same  need  which 
is  leading  the  representatives  of  Christianity  to  lay 
ever  greater  stress  upon  the  reality  and  pragmatic 
value  of  the  religious  experience,  less  and  less  upon 
dogmas  and  creeds. 

It  will  be  my  attempt  in  this  brief  paper  to  show 
how  the  facts  of  evolutionary  biology  provide  us, 
in  the  shape  of  a  verifiable  doctrine  of  progress,  with 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  7 

one  of  the  elements  most  essential  to  any  such  exter- 
nally-grounded conception  of  God,  to  any  construc- 
tion which  shall  be  able  to  serve  as  permanent  satis- 
faction of  that  deepest  need  whereof  we  have  spoken. 

Any  such  construction  must  take  account  of  many 
separate  parts  of  reality.  In  the  first  place,  it  must 
consider  those  realities  inherent  in  the  mind  of  man: 
his  desire  for  goodness;  the  sense  of  value  which  all 
agree  is  attached  to  certain  experiences  of  mystics 
and  to  certain  religious  emotions;  his  ideals  and  their 
importance  for  the  conduct  of  life.  But  in  the  sec- 
ond place  it  must  consider  those  realities  which  are 
independent  of  man  and  of  his  mind — the  ascertain- 
able body  of  hard  fact,  those  things  which  existed  be- 
fore ever  he  existed,  which  would  exist  were  he  to 
disappear,  with  which  he  must  struggle  as  best  he 
may.  Lastly,  there  is  the  need  for  intermediation 
between  the  one  and  the  other  reality,  between  the 
inner  felt  and  the  outer  known. 

Mr.Wells,^  if  you  remember,  erected  a  new  trini- 
tarianism,  which  in  broad  outlines  corresponded  with 
this  division.  With  his  particular  construction,  I 
do  not  in  many  respects  agree.  But  that  some  form 
of  trinitarianism  is  a  reasonably  natural  method  of 
symbolizing  the  inevitable  tripleness  of  inner  experi- 
ence, outer  fact,  and  their  interrelation  is  obvious 
enough.  In  the  particular  trinitarianism  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  reality  apprehended  to  exist  behind  the 
forces  of  Nature  is  called  the  Father,  the  upspringing 

1  Wells,  '17. 


8  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

force  within  the  mind  of  man,  especially  when  it 
seems  to  transcend  individuality  and  to  overflow  into 
what  we  designate  as  the  mystical,  is  called  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  the  activity,  personal  or  vicarious,  which 
mediates  between  the  individual  and  the  rest  of  the 
universe,  reconciling  his  incompleteness  and  his  fail- 
ures with  its  apparent  sternness  and  inexorableness, 
is  called  the  Son. 

Some  men  lay  more  weight  on  one  of  these  aspects 
than  on  the  others.  I  know  a  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  England  who,  on  being  reproached  during 
a  theological  argument  with  failure  to  pay  sufficient 
respect  to  the  doctrine  of  God  the  Father,  replied: 
"I  am  not  interested  in  God  the  Father";  and  I  know 
intellectually-minded  men  who  wish  to  reject  the  va- 
lidity of  all  religious  experience  because  their  minds 
are  so  made  that  the}^  pay  more  attention  to  external 
fact  and  because  their  reason  refuses  to  let  them  agree 
with  the  interpretations  of  fact  propounded  by  most 
religious  bodies.  But,  for  a  properly  balanced  con- 
struction, for  the  finding  of  something  which  shall 
serve  not  as  the  basis  of  a  creed  for  this  or  that  sect, 
but  of  a  creed  for  humanity,  of  something  which  in- 
stead of  dividing  shall  unite,  we  need  all  aspects. 

The  idea  of  Progress  constitutes,  as  I  hope  to  show, 
the  most  important  element  in  the  first  part  of  our 
construction — that  which  attempts  to  synthesize  the 
facts  of  Nature;  and  besides,  no  inconsiderable  por- 
tion of  the  third,  the  interrelation  of  inner  and  outer. 

Readers  of  Bury's  interesting  book  on  the  Idea  of 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  9 

Progress  *  will  perhaps,  with  me,  have  been  surprised 
at  the  modernity  of  that  conception.  He  shows  how, 
in  antiquity,  the  idea  was  never  a  dominant  one,  and 
further  that  the  adumbrations  made  of  it  all  lacked 
some  element  without  which  it  cannot  be  styled  prog- 
ress in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  is  used  to-day. 

Not  indeed  till  the  late  Renaissance  can  we  say 
that  the  idea  of  Progress  became  in  any  real  sense 
incorporated  with  the  common  thought  of  Western 
civilization.  From  then  to  the  present  it  has  suf- 
fered many  vicissitudes.  Starting  in  the  XVIIth  cen- 
tury as  little  more  than  a  consciousness  of  the  supe- 
riority of  the  present  over  the  past,  in  the  XVIIIth  it 
changed  to  a  dogma,  its  adherents  claiming  that 
there  existed  a  ''Law  of  Progress"  leading  inevitably 
to  the  perfectioning  of  humanity.  In  the  XlXth 
century  the  dogma  was  questioned,  and  thinkers  be- 
gan to  put  it  to  the  test — the  test  of  comparing  the- 
ory with  historical  fact.  A  new  lease  of  life,  how- 
ever, was  given  to  the  idea  of  a  law  of  progress  by 
the  evolution  theory;  but  finally,  of  late  years,  there 
has  been  a  marked  reaction,  leading  not  only  to  a  de- 
nial of  any  such  inevitable  law,  but  often  to  a  ques- 
tioning of  the  very  existence  of  Progress  in  any  shape 
or  form. 

It  is  the  business  of  the  philosopher  and  of  the 
biologist  to  see  whether  this  scepticism  be  justified, 
and  to  find  out  by  a  more  scientific  approach  how 
much  of  the  doctrine  of  Progress  is  valid.    To  the 

*  Bury,  '20. 


10  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

layman  it  would  seem  inevitable,  once  the  validity 
of  the  evolution  theory  was  granted,  to  concede  the 
fact  of  Progress  in  some  form  or  another.  If  we 
accept  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  we  are  bound  to  be- 
lieve that  man  has  arisen  from  mammals,  terrestrial 
from  aquatic  forms,  vertebrates  from  invertebrates, 
multicellular  from  unicellular,  and  in  general  the 
larger  and  the  more  complex  from  the  smaller  and 
simpler.  To  the  average  man  it  will  appear  indis- 
putable that  a  man  is  higher  than  a  worm  or  a  polyp, 
an  insect  higher  than  a  protozoan,  even  if  he  cannot 
exactly  define  in  what  resides  this  highness  or  low- 
ness  of  organic  types. 

It  is,  curiously  enough,  among  the  professional 
biologists  that  objectors  to  the  notion  of  biological 
progress  and  to  its  corollary,  the  distinction  of  higher 
and  lower  forms  of  life,  have  chiefly  been  found.  I 
say  curiously  enough,  and  yet  to  a  dispassionate  ob- 
server it  is  perhaps  not  so  curious,  but  only  one 
further  instance  of  that  common  human  failing,  the 
inability  to  see  woods  because  of  the  trees  that  com- 
pose them. 

That  is  as  it  may  be.  Our  best  course  will  be  to 
start  by  examining  some  of  the  chief  objections  to 
the  idea  of  biological  progress,  in  order  to  see  if  they 
involve  errors  of  thought  which  we  may  then  avoid. 

The  most  widespread  of  all  the  objections  raised 
may,  I  think,  be  fairly  put  as  follows:  'The  funda- 
mental attribute  of  living  beings  is  adaptation  to 
environment.     A  man  is  not  better  adapted  to  his 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  1  1 

environment  than  the  flea  which  lives  upon  him  as 
a  parasite,  or  than  the  bacillus  which  kills  him,  nor 
is  a  bird  better  adapted  to  air  than  a  jelly-fish  to 
water;  therefore  we  have  no  right  to  speak  of  one  as 
higher  than  the  other,  or  to  regard  the  transition 
from  one  type  to  another  as  involving  progress." 

A  second  class  of  objector  is  prepared  to  admit 
that  there  has  been  an  increase  of  complexity,  an  in- 
crease in  the  degree  of  organization  during  evolu- 
tion, but  refuses  to  allow  that  increase  of  complexity 
has  any  value  in  itself,  whether  biological  or  phil- 
osophical, and  accordingly  refuses  to  dignify  this 
trend  towards  greater  complexity  by  the  name  of 
progress. 

Yet  a  third  difficulty  is  raised  by  those  who  ask  us 
to  fix  our  attention  on  forms  of  life  like  Lingula,  the 
lamp-shell,  which,  though  millions  of  years  elapse, 
do  not  evolve.  If  there  exists  a  Law  of  Progress, 
they  say,  how  is  it  that  such  creatures  are  exempt 
from  its  operations? 

Finally,  a  somewhat  similar  attitude  is  adopted  by 
those  who  refuse  to  grant  that  evolution  can  involve 
progress  when  it  has,  as  we  know,  brought  about 
well-nigh  innumerable  degenerations.  Granted,  for 
instance,  they  would  say,  that  the  average  Crusta- 
cean is  in  many  ways  an  improvement  upon  the 
simple  form  of  life  from  which  we  must  suppose  that 
it  arose,  yet  we  know  that  within  the  group  of  Crus- 
tacea there  are  several  lines  of  descent  which  have 
led  to  the  production  of  parasitic  forms — animals  in 


12  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

which  the  activity  and  complex  organization  of 
the  ancestral  type  has  been  sacrificed,  and  as  end- 
product  we  are  presented  with  a  hateful  being,  an  al- 
most shapeless  mass  consisting  of  little  else  but  over- 
developed reproductive  organs  and  mechanisms  for 
sucking  nutriment  from  its  unfortunate  host.  Such 
a  result  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  Crustacean  form  Sac- 
culina,  and  is  paralleled  by  countless  other  examples 
in  almost  every  class  of  animals.  The  degradation 
of  parasites  and  sedentary  types  is  equally  a  product 
of  the  evolutionary  process  with  the  genesis  of  the 
ant,  the  bird  or  the  human  being;  how  then  can  we 
call  the  evolutionary  process  progressive? 

These  are  important  objections.  Can  they  be 
met?  In  the  broadest  way  they  can  and  must  be 
met  by  the  only  possible  method,  the  m.ethod  of 
Science,  which  consists  in  examining  facts  objec- 
tively, and  by  drawing  conclusions  not  a  priori,  but 
a  posteriori.  A  law  of  Nature  is  not  (and  I  wonder 
how  often  this  fallacy  has  been  exploded,  only  to  re- 
appear next  day) — a  law  of  Nature  is  not  something 
revealed,  not  something  absolute,  not  something  im- 
posed on  phenomena  from  without  or  from  above;  it 
is  no  more  and  no  less  than  a  sumrning-up,  in  gener- 
alized form,  of  our  own  observations  of  phenomena; 
it  is  an  epitome  of  fact  from  which  we  can  draw  sev- 
eral conclusions.  By  beginning  in  this  way  from 
the  very  beginning,  by  examining  the  basis  of  our 
mode  of  thinking  in  natural  science,  only  thus  are 
we  enabled  to  see  at  one  and  the  same  moment  how 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  13 

to  investigate  the  question  of  progress  on  the  con- 
structive side,  and  how  to  neutralize  the  force  of  the 
objections  to  the  idea. 

Questions  of  fact  are  simple  to  deal  with.  It  is 
indubitable  that  some  forms  of  life  remain  stationary 
and  unevolving  for  secular  periods;  it  is  equally  in- 
dubitable that  degeneration  is  widespread  in  evolu- 
tion. These  are  facts.  But  we  are  not  therefore 
called  upon  to  deny  the  possibility  of  progress.  To 
do  so  would  be  to  fall  into  the  error  of  reasoning 
which  we  have  already  condemned.  It  remains  for 
us  to  take  these  facts  into  account  when  examining 
the  totality  of  facts  concerning  organic  life,  and  to 
see  whether,  in  spite  of  them,  we  cannot  discover  a 
series  of  other  facts,  a  movement  in  phenomena, 
which  may  still  legitimately  be  called  progress.  To 
deny  progress  because  of  degeneration  is  really  no 
more  legitimate  than  to  assert  that,  because  each 
wave  runs  back  after  it  has  broken,  therefore  the  tide 
can  never  rise. 

Similarly  with  the  first  two  objections.  If  the 
degree  of  adaptation  has  not  increased  during  evolu- 
tion, then  it  is  clear  that  progress  does  not  consist  in 
increase  in  adaptation.  But  it  does  not  follow  that 
progress  does  not  exist;  it  may  quite  well  consist  in 
an  increase  of  other  qualities.  So  with  complexity. 
Complexity  has  increased,  but  increase  in  complexity 
is  not  progress,  say  the  objectors.  Granted:  but 
may  there  not  be  something  else  which  has  increased 
besides  mere  complexity? 


14  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

No;  the  remedy  for  all  our  difficulties,  and  indeed 
the  only  way  in  which  we  can  arrive  at  the  possibil- 
ity of  saying  whether  biological  progress  exists  or  no, 
is  to  adopt  the  positive  method. 

Let  us  then  begin  our  survey  of  biological  evolu- 
tion in  the  endeavour  to  find  whether  or  no  progress 
is  visible  there.  To  start  with,  we  must  be  clear 
what  are  the  sources  of  our  knowledge  on  the  subject. 

Direct  observation  of  progressive  evolution  has,  of 
course,  not  yet  been  possible  in  the  period — biologi- 
cally negligible — in  which  man  has  directed  his  atten- 
tion to  the  problem;  and  historical  record  is  also  ab- 
sent. The  best  available  evidence  is  that  of  paleon- 
tology: here  the  relative  positions  of  the  layers  of  the 
earth's  crust  enable  us  to  deduce  their  temporal  se- 
quence— and  naturally,  that  of  the  organisms  whose 
fossil  remains  they  embalm — with  a  great  deal  of 
accuracy.^ 

We  can  scarcely  ever  observe  the  direct  transition 
from  the  forms  of  life  in  an  older  to  those  in  a 
younger  stratum,  nor  can  we  absolutely  prove  their 
genetic  relationship.  But  in  a  vast  number  of  cases 
it  is  abundantly  clear  that  the  later  type  of  organiza- 
tion is  descended  from  the  former — that  a  group  of 
forms  in  the  younger  stratum  had  its  origin  in  one  or 
more  species  of  the  group  to  which  the  forms  in  the 
older  stratum  belong.     Sometimes,  however,  as  in 

3  This  holds  good,  naturally,  for  any  given  spot  on  the  earth's 
crust:  once  the  contained  fossils  have  been  carefully  examined 
from  a  number  of  series  of  strata,  they  enable  us  to  correlate  the 
ages  of  the  members  of  the  different  series. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  15 

many  groups  of  mammals,  the  gaps  are  few  and 
small,  the  seriation  almost  complete.  In  any  event 
we  have  here  evidence  which,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  per- 
fectly admissible  for  the  main  lines  and  for  many  of 
the  smaller  branches  of  evolutionary  descent. 

Unfortunately,  it  does  not  go  very  far — or,  we  had 
better  say,  it  is  of  restricted  application.  By  the 
time  we  find  well-preserved  fossils  in  the  rocks,  the 
main  groups  of  the  animal  kingdom  and  their  chief 
subdivisions  had  been  already  differentiated,  with 
the  one  important  exception  of  the  vertebrates;  while 
time,  heat,  and  pressure  have  so  modified  the  earlier 
strata  as  to  destroy  the  fossil  forefathers  of  insects, 
molluscs,  Crustacea,  and  the  rest,  which  they  must 
have  contained. 

Within  the  vertebrate  stock,  then,  we  can  learn  a 
great  deal  from  the  semi-direct  methods  of  paleon- 
tology: but  for  the  history  of  the  other  groups  and 
for  their  origin  and  interrelations,  we  are  driven  back 
upon  comparative  anatomy  and  embryology,  into  an- 
other field  of  more  circumstantial  evidence.  When, 
for  instance,  we  find  that  the  fore-limbs  of  bat,  bird, 
whale,  horse,  and  man,  although  so  difl'erent  in  func- 
tion and  in  detail  of  structure,  are  yet  built  upon  the 
same  general  plan,  and  upon  a  plan  wholly  different 
from  that  of  the  limbs,  say,  of  a  spider  or  an  insect, 
we  must  either  deny  reason  and  say  that  this  similar- 
ity means  nothing;  or  assume  that  its  cause  is  super- 
natural, outside  the  province  of  science,  that  it  is  the 
expression  of  some  eternal   Idea,  or  some  plan  of 


16  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

a  personal  creator  (in  which  case,  be  it  noted, 
the  idea  or  the  plan  often  appears  to  our  intellect  as 
unreasonable  and  indeed  stupid);  or  finally  that  it 
implies  community  of  origin  with  later  divergence 
of  development.  When  we  are  dealing  with  the 
smaller  sub-divisions  of  some  larger  group,  this 
method  too  gives  us  information  of  the  same  order 
of  accuracy  as  does  paleontology :  but  when  we  try  to 
understand  the  relationships  of  these  larger  groups, 
then  we  are  forced  to  renounce  any  claim  to  detailed 
knowledge.  In  broad  outline,  however,  a  great  deal 
still  remains,  and  this  broad  outline  we  can  employ 
for  our  valuation  of  the  whole  sweep  of  biological 
progress,  just  as  we  can  use  the  greater  accuracy  of 
vertebrate  paleontology  and  comparative  morphol- 
ogy to  fill  in  the  detail  within  a  restricted  field  of 
its  operation.  From  these  various  evidences,  direct 
and  indirect,  we  can  paint  for  ourselves  a  picture  of 
the  evolution  of  life  which,  in  spite  of  inevitable 
gaps  and  errors,  is  in  its  main  features  adequate  and 
true. 

Let  us  not  be  misled  by  the  fact  that  disputes  can 
and  justifiably  do  arise  over  details:  as  Professor 
Bateson  put  it  recently^: — 

"If  the  broad  lines  do  not  hold,  then  we  must  sink 
into  irrationality  or  turn  to  flagrant  supernatural- 


ism. 


Let  us  then  remind  ourselves  of  some  of  these 
broad  lines. 

*  Bateson,  '22. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND  OTHER  17 

We  know  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  earth, 
hot  and  fiery,  could  not  have  been  the  abode  of  life. 
Of  the  first  origins  of  life  we  know  nothing  and  guess 
little.  What  we  can  justifiably  surmise  is  that  the 
protoplasm  of  the  original  organisms  was  not  yet  dif- 
ferentiated into  cytoplasm  and  nucleus,  and  that  sex- 
uality had  not  yet  arisen.  The  bacteria,  however 
specialized  in  other  ways,  are  still  in  this  primitive 
condition. 

Later,  we  can  with  great  probability  infer  that  the 
independent  units  into  which  the  stuff  of  life  was  sub- 
divided reached  a  size  which,  though  still  minute, 
was  at  least  not  beyond  or  even  close  to  the  limits  of 
microscopic  vision;  they  were  further  provided  with 
a  nucleus,  and  occasionally  underwent  sexual  fusion. 
In  other  words,  they  showed  an  organization  which 
we  call  cellular;  they  were  free-living  cells.  Such 
unicellular  creatures  must  have  been  at  one  epoch 
sole  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  and  diverged  into  the 
most  manifold  types  of  structure  and  modes  of  life. 
Such  of  them  as  led  an  animal  as  opposed  to  a  plant 
type  of  existence  would  be  classified  under  the  Pro- 
tozoa or  unicellular  animals.^ 

The  colonial  habit  gives  advantages  of  increased 
size  and  greater  rapidity  of  motion,  of  which  many 

*  There  is  a  certain  school  of  biologists  who  object  to  de- 
scribing Protozoa  as  cells.  This  to  others  appears  pedantic. 
But,  whether  or  no  they  are  right  in  the  matter  of  terminology, 
the  fact  which  I  am  here  emphasizing  remains,  viz.,  that  Pro- 
tozoa had  to  be  aggregated  before  the  Metazoa,  or  many-celled 
animals,  could  arise. 


18  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

Protozoa  have  availed  themselves.  A  colonial  exist- 
ence once  attained,  division  of  labour,  at  first  be- 
tween the  germinal  and  the  somatic,  later  between 
different  types  of  somatic  units,  will  be  a  further  ad- 
vantage. Such  organisms,  of  which  we  cannot  say 
definitely  whether  they  are  compound  aggregates  or 
single  wholes,  would  represent  the  most  natural  link 
between  the  unicellular  Protozoan  and  the  rest  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  the  multicellular  forms  or  Metazoa. 
And  indeed  such  organisms  exist  at  the  present  day 
— organisms  such  as  Volvox,  Zoothamnium,  Protero- 
spongia,  and  Myxidium — as  adjuvant  and  confirma- 
tory of  our  reasonable  faith. 

The  multicellular  organisms  appear  to  have  orig- 
inated twice  over,  by  divergent  routes.  There  are 
the  true  Metazoa,  to  which  belong  all  the  higher 
types,  and  the  Parazoa  or  sponges,  which  have  never 
passed  beyond  a  very  primitive  type  of  structure. 
Both  start  as  simple  sacs,  whose  walls  are  formed 
from  two  primary  sheets  or  layers  of  cells.  Leav- 
ing sponges  out  of  account,  the  Hydroid  polyps  are 
the  simplest  representative  of  this  grade  of  structure, 
while  some  of  the  Jelly-fish  and  Siphonophores  have 
attained  the  utmost  limit  of  its  inherent  possibili- 
ties. 

The  next  great  step  was  the  intercalation  of  a 
third  primary  layer  between  the  other  two.  The 
result  of  this,  the  so-called  triploblastic  type  of  or- 
ganization, gives  the  ground-plan  for  all  subsequent 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  19 

organizations;   and  later  evolution  consists  mainly 
in  the  evolution  of  this  ground-plan. 

In  other  words,  we  can  now  pass  from  the  consid- 
eration of  the  general  plan  of  life's  architecture  to 
that  of  its  details.  During  the  next  great  tract  of. 
time,  that  which  was  novel  in  life  (for  we  must  not 
be  guilty  of  a  petitio  principii  in  yet  speaking  of 
"advance"  or  ''progress")  was  brought  about  in  two 
main  ways — by  an  increase  in  the  size  of  organisms, 
and  by  an  increase  in  the  efficiency  of  their  working. 

The  simplest  Metazoa,  such  as  the  polyps,  as  well 
as  the  simplest  three-layered  forms,  such  as  the  free- 
living  flat-worms,  are  all  small,  composed  of  an 
amount  of  material  comparable  with  that  contained 
in  a  single  one  of  our  hairs.  In  every  group  of  Met- 
azoa, increase  of  size  is  one  of  the  main  features  that 
accompanies  specialization,  and  the  more  specialized 
groups  possess  a  higher  average  size  than  the  less, 

A  jelly-fish  against  a  polyp;  a  cuttle-fish  against  a 
primitive  mollusc;  a  vertebrate  against  its  chordate 
ancestor;  the  giant  reptiles  of  the  late  secondary 
period  against  their  forbears;  a  horse  against  Phena- 
codus;  man  against  the  earliest  primates — over  and 
over  again  does  size  increase  with  the  march  of  time. 

Not  only  this,  but  when  there  occurs  aggregation 
of  individuals  to  form  units  of  a  higher  order,  as  in 
bees  and  ants  and  termites,  and  in  man  himself, 
there  too  increase  of  size  in  the  new  units  thus  pro- 
duced is  one  of  the  most  notable  features.     Is  not 


20  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

human  history  in  large  measure  the  history  of  the 
increase  in  size  of  social  units? 

But  size  alone  is  not  enough;  there  is  also  a  defi- 
nite improvement  of  the  details  of  life's  mechanism — 
partly  revealed  as  improvement  in  the  efficiency  of 
the  parts  themselves,  partly  in  the  adjustment  of  the 
parts  to  each  other,  and  their  subordination  to 
the  needs  of  the  whole. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  detail  the  improvements 
in  efficiency  of  different  organs  during  evolution: 
such  are  universally  familiar.  But  a  few  examples 
will  point  my  moral.  The  lowest  three-layered 
forms  have  no  circulatory  system;  this,  rendered  nec- 
essary later  by  increase  of  size,  shows  a  gradual 
differentiation  of  parts  in  evolution.  The  exquisite 
machinery  of  our  heart  is  directly  descended  from  a 
minute  pulsating  ventral  vessel  such  as  that  seen  in 
Amphioxus.  Protection  and  support  are  better 
cared  for  in  insect  than  in  worm,  in  mammal  than 
in  lamprey.  But  the  most  spectacular  improvement 
of  function,  the  most  important  of  all  the  directional 
movements  in  evolution  has  been  that  affecting  the 
nervous  system  and  the  sense-organs  associated  with 
it.  Few  people  who  have  not  gone  carefully  into 
the  subject  realize  how  imprisoned  and  windowless 
are  the  existences  led  by  lower  forms  of  life. 

Even  such  physically  well-organized  creatures  as 
Crustacea  stand  at  an  amazingly  low  mental  level. 
The  other  day  I  was  reading  a  careful  account  of 
experiments  on  the  behaviour  of  crabs.    The  method 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  21 

by  which  the  sexes  recognize  each  other  is  so  crude 
that  I  am  not  sure  whether  it  deserves  the  term 
recognition  at  all.  Before  mating,  which  takes  place 
immediately  after  a  moult,  the  female  is  carried 
about  for  some  time  in  the  claws  of  the  male.  The 
mature  males  will  attempt  to  lift  up  and  carry  off 
any  members  of  the  same  specie:,  male  or  female: 
but  the  only  ones  which  will  permit  themselves  to  be 
thus  carried  about  are  females  just  before  moulting. 
Hence  by  a  general  instinct  to  lift  any  members  of 
the  same  species  on  the  part  of  the  males,  and  on  the 
part  of  the  females  an  instinct  to  allow  themselves  to 
be  lifted  when  in  the  physiological  condition  which 
precedes  moulting,  the  required  end  is  brought  about. 
But  of  any  mental  operation  such  as  is  involved  in 
sex-recognition  in  man  or  any  other  mammal,  there 
is  no  evidence. 

Fish,  to  take  another  example,  possess  associative 
memory;  they  can  learn.  But  they  learn  very 
slowly,  and  learn  only  the  simplest  things.  The 
jump  from  their  powers  of  memory  to  those  of  a  dog, 
who  can  be  trained  comparatively  quickly  to  carry 
out  complicated  tricks,  is  as  great  as  the  further 
jump  from  the  powers  of  a  dog  to  those  of  a  man 
capable  of  learning  a  page  of  print  by  heart  in  two 
or  three  readings. 

The  first  organs  connected  with  mind  to  become 
elaborated  are  the  organs  of  sense :  but  such  receptor 
organs  are  useless  to  their  possessor,  however  elabo- 
rate, unless  put  into  relation  with  proper  effector  or- 


22  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

gans — organs  for  action,  whether  locomotor  or  secre- 
tory. So  that  the  first  steps  are  the  elaboration  of 
sense-organs,  the  increase  of  efficiency  of  muscles  and 
glands,  and,  equally  essential,  the  construction  of  an 
improved  ''adjuster  system,"  whereby  the  stimulus 
falling  on  the  sense-organ  may  be  translated  into  ac- 
tion and  into  the  right  kind  of  action.  This  adjustor 
mechanism  is  the  central  nervous  system.  Most  of 
the  further  history  of  organisms  may  be  summed  up 
in  one  phrase — the  evolution  of  adjustor  mecha- 
nisms. 

At  first,  it  is  chiefly  of  importance  to  be  brought 
into  relation  with  more  and  more  of  the  happenings 
of  the  outer  world,  to  be  able  to  see  and  hear  and  feel 
and  smell  more  and  more  delicately;  and  to  react 
upon  the  outer  world  more  and  more  efficiently  and 
powerfully,  to  be  able  to  move  and  to  handle  matter 
more  quickly  and  with  finer  and  finer  adjustment. 

But  unless  the  adjustor  mechanism  be  improved, 
this  process  soon  tends  to  a  limit.  I  may  illustrate 
my  meaning  by  a  simple  supposition.  Suppose  an 
organism  capable  of  very  little  beyond  reflexes  and 
instincts  and  with  but  a  scanty  dose  of  associative 
power:  of  what  conceivable  use  to  it  would  be  a 
telescope  or  a  telephone?  Man  obtains  a  biological 
advantage  from  such  accessory  sense-organs  in  that, 
when  thus  apprised  of  events  at  a  distance,  he  is  en- 
abled to  plan  out  courses  of  action  to  meet  the  events 
which  he  imagines  are  going  to  overtake  him:  but 
both  planning  and  imagination  are  entirely  functions 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  23 

of  an  adjuster  mechanism,  and  without  such  a 
mechanism,  great  enlargement  of  sensory  power 
would  only  result  in  an  organism  reacting  too  often 
and  unnecessarily  to  events  in  its  environment. 

There  is,  in  fact,  an  obvious  limit  to  the  perfection 
which  can  be  attained  by  receptor  and  effector  or- 
gans. Striated  muscles,  the  modelling  of  the  skele- 
ton and  joints  for  speed  in  a  horse  or  greyhound,  the 
eye  and  ear  of  higher  vertebrates,  the  mammalian 
sense  of  smell — no  doubt  it  would  be  possible  for  life 
to  have  produced  more  perfect  and  more  efficient 
mechanisms — but  not,  apparently,  mechanisms  much 
more  perfect  or  much  more  efficient.  They  stand 
near  the  limit  of  biological  efficiency. 

There  thus  comes  a  time  when  it  is  impossible  or 
extremely  difficult  to  give  an  organism  advantage  in 
the  struggle  by  improving  its  sense-organs  or  its  loco- 
motor system,  or  indeed  any  of  its  general  physical 
construction,  whereas  it  is  still  possible  to  confer  the 
most  important  advantages  upon  it  by  means  of  im- 
provements in  the  adjustor  mechanism,  improve- 
ments which  involve  and  imply  improvements  of 
mind. 

This  stage  was  reached  by  mammals  and  birds 
quite  early  in  the  TertK'ry  period;  and  one  of  the 
most  striking  spectacles  of  biology,  revealed  in  the 
fossils  of  successive  strata,  is  to  see  Mind  coming 
into  its  own  after  this  epoch.  Over  and  over  again 
a  group  of  animals  is  seen  to  appear  and  spread,  only 
to  be  extinguished  and  replaced  by  another  type 


24  ESSAYS   OF    A   BIOLOGIST 

which  to  all  outward  appearance  is  similar,  no  better 
adapted  to  the  conditions  of  life.  But  the  two  types 
differ  in  one  point:  the  later  possessed  a  larger  brain, 
and  so,  from  all  analogy,  a  better  mind.  Or,  to  take 
another  example,  man  differs  from  the  lower  animals 
in  no  notable  physical  specialization  except  the  up- 
right posture. 

After  this  critical  point  in  the  evolution  of  organ- 
isms was  reached,  further  development  has  consisted 
chiefly  in  the  development  of  mind:  and  this  has 
meant,  from  the  objective,  purely  biological  stand- 
point, the  possibility  of  summing-up  ever  more  and 
more  power  and  fme  adjustment  of  response  in  the 
present,  in  the  single  act.^ 

The  first  main  function  of  the  improved  adjustor 
mechanism  was  to  make  ever  more  complicated  ac- 
tions possible;  but  this  again  tended  speedily  to  a 
limit.  The  next  step  was  to  make  it  possible  for  the 
past  to  act  in  the  present.  Through  associative 
memory,  present  behaviour  is  modified  by  past  ex- 
perience. What  this  has  meant  to  organisms  can  be 
realized  if  we  reflect  that  certain  terms  which  can 
justly  be  applied  to  a  mammal  or  a  bird  have  no  real 
meaning  if  applied  to  lower  forms.  If  we  speak 
of  a  cunning  wolf  or  a  wary  crow,  we  imply  that  their 
life  has  taught  them  new  qualities;  but  it  is  non- 
sense to  talk  of  a  cunning  crab,  and,  though  we 
might  properly  ascribe  wariness  to  a  trout,  I  would 
not  like  to  speak  of  a  wary  Amoeba.     In  the  same 

eSee  Lloyd  Morgan,  70;  Washburn,  '13;    Kohler,  '21. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  25 

way  we  can  justifiably  say  that  one  dog  is  affection- 
ate, another  intelligent:  but  to  speak  of  an  affec- 
tionate earthworm  or  an  intelligent  snail  has  no 
more  proper  significance  than  it  would  be  to  say  that 
a  dog  was  intellectual  or  religious. 

Quickness  of  learning  then  became  of  importance; 
but  so  long  as  the  faculty  of  generalizing  is  absent, 
associative  memory,  although  liberating  organisms 
from  the  prison  of  a  fixed  and  inherited  mental  con- 
stitution, still  pins  them  down  to  the  accidental  and 
the  particular;  an  organism  can  only  learn  to  react 
to  those  particular  experiences  which  chance  has  de- 
creed that  it  should  have  had. 

The  next  and  last  salient  step  in  evolution  was  a 
double  one.  Which  of  its  two  parts  came  first  is 
hard  to  say;  probably  they  acted  reciprocally 
throughout.  This  step  was,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
attainment  of  the  power  of  generalization — of  rea- 
son, concept-formation,  or  what  you  will — and  on 
the  other  the  origin  of  tradition,  which  in  its  turn 
was  made  possible  by  the  acquisition  of  speech  and 
of  a  gregarious  mode  of  life.  By  these  means,  the 
human  species  and  its  evolving  ancestors  were  grad- 
ually enabled,  first,  to  free  experience  ever  more 
and  more  from  the  accidental  and  to  store  what  was 
essential;  and,  secondly,  to  bring  gradually  more  and 
more  of  the  experience  of  the  whole  race  to  bear  upon 
the  present  problem,  and  to  plan  further  and  further 
ahead,  and  on  a  larger  and  larger  scale. 

This  has  meant,  among  other  things,  that  for  the 


26  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

first  time  in  biological  history  there  has  been  an 
aggregation  (in  the  technical  biological  sense)  of 
minds.  Over  and  over  again  in  evolution  does  the 
process  of  aggregation  appear."^  It  is  an  advantage, 
for  at  one  jump  it  lands  life  on  a  new  level  of  size, 
with  new  possibilities  of  division  of  labour  and  spe- 
cialization. It  appears  in  the  aggregation  of  Pro- 
tozoa to  form  the  colonial  ancestor  of  all  higher, 
many-celled  forms.  It  appears  again  on  this  new 
level  in  the  aggregation  of  hydroid  polyps,  of  poly- 
zoa,  of  ascidians,  and  especially  in  the  beautiful  float- 
ing Siphonophora,  in  which  the  polyp-like  units 
(themselves  historically  aggregates  of  cells)  have 
become  so  subordinate  in  relation  to  the  whole  that 
they  can  often  scarcely  be  recognized  as  individuals, 
and  the  individuality  of  the  aggregate  is  much  more 
marked  than  that  of  its  components.  It  appears  in 
a  new  way  in  the  Termites  and  in  the  social  Hy- 
menoptera — ants,  bees,  and  wasps.  Here  the  bonds 
uniting  the  members  of  the  aggregate  are  not  phys- 
ical but  mental,  their  sense-impressions  and  instincts; 
but  the  principle  is  identical  throughout.  Finally  in 
man  we  have  not  merely  aggregation  of  physical  in- 
dividuals held  together  by  mental  bonds,  but  aggre- 
gation of  minds  as  well  as  of  physical  individuals. 

In  many  mammals  and  birds,  each  generation  can 
extend  its  influence  on  to  the  next,  and  the  experi- 
ence of  the  parents  is  in  part  made  available  to  the 
offspring.     But  never  until  the  origin  of  speech  was 

^Huxley,  '12. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  27 

it  possible  for  a  whole  series  of  generations  to  be 
linked  together  by  experience,  never  could  experience 
be  cumulative,  never  could  one  mind  know  what  an- 
other mind,  remote  in  time,  had  been  thinking  or  feel- 
ing. Biologically,  evolution  since  the  time  of  origin 
of  this  new  process  has  consisted  essentially  in  the 
enlargement  and  specialization  of  aggregations  of 
minds,  and  the  improvement  of  the  tradition  which 
constitutes  the  mode  of  inheritance  for  these  aggre- 
gations— that  tradition  which,  like  Hugo's  "Nef 
magique  et  supreme"  of  human  destiny,  will  even- 
tually have  "fait  entrer  dans  I'homme  tant  d'azur 
quelle  a  supprime  les  patries/' 

It  will,  I  hope,  have  been  clear,  even  from  the  few 
examples  which  I  have  given,  that  there  has  been  a 
main  direction  in  evolution.  At  the  close  of  the 
paper  I  shall  try  to  point  out  that  since  motion  in  this 
direction  has  led  to  the  production  of  an  increasing 
intensity  of  qualities  which  we  are  unanimous  in 
calling  valuable,  since  in  other  words  the  applica- 
tion of  our  scale  of  values  tends  in  the  same  direc- 
tion as  has  the  march  of  evolutionary  history,  that 
therefore  we  are  justified  in  calling  this  direction 
progressive,  and  indeed  logically  compelled  to  give 
to  motion  in  this  direction  a  name  which,  like  prog- 
ress, implies  the  idea  of  value. 

I  shall  therefore,  from  now  on,  use  the  term  biolog- 
ical progress  to  denote  movement  in  the  direction 
which 'we  have  sketched  in  outline,  and  shall  shortly 
proceed  to  defme  more  accurately.     In  so  doing,  I 


28  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

perhaps  beg  the  question,  to  be  proved  I  hope  later, 
as  to  whether  the  observed  direction  is  progressive: 
but  I  no  longer  beg  the  question  of  whether  evolution 
is  a  directional  process.  However  we  may  argue  on 
the  facts,  the  facts  remain:  and  the  facts  are  that 
there  has  been  an  increase  in  certain  qualities  of  or- 
ganisms, both  physical  and  mental,  during  geological 
time. 

Meanwhile,  let  it  be  remembered,  the  simplest 
forms  have  survived  side  by  side  with  the  more  com- 
plex, the  less  specialized  with  the  more  specialized. 
Even  Vv'hen  we  can  trace  a  causal  relation  between 
the  rise  of  one  group  and  the  decay  of  another,  as 
with  the  mammals  and  birds  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  reptiles  on  the  other,  even  then  numbers  of  the 
defeated  group  continue  to  exist.  Thus,  in  broad 
terms,  evolution  is  not  a  transformation,  be  it  pro- 
gressive or  no,  of  the  whole  of  living  matter,  but  of 
a  part  of  it. 

I  will  endeavour  to  sum  up,  in  brief,  what  seem  to 
me  the  salient  points  of  that  process,  a  sketch  of 
which,  inevitably  hasty  and  inadequate,  I  have  just 
tried  to  give. 

During  the  time  of  life's  existence  on  this  planet, 
there  has  been  an  increase,  both  in  the  average  and 
far  more  in  the  upper  level,  of  certain  attributes  of 
living  things. 

In  the  first  place  there  has  been  an  increase  in  their 
size,  brought  about  by  two  methods,  first  by  the  in- 
crease of  size  of  the  units  of  life  themselves  (cells, 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  29 

metazoan  individuals,  communities),  secondly  by 
their  aggregation;  and  this  has  been  accompanied  by 
a  (very  roughly)  parallel  increase  in  the  duration  of 
life. 

Next,  there  has  been  an  increase  in  their  complex- 
ity; and  this  in  its  turn  depends  upon  the  fact  that 
a  division  of  labour  has  been  brought  about  between 
the  parts  of  organisms,  each  part  becoming  special- 
ized for  greater  efficiency  in  the  performance  of  some 
particular  function.  In  the  fewest  words,  the  sepa- 
rate bits  of  machinery  of  which  organisms  are  com- 
posed have  become  more  efficient. 

In  the  third  place,  there  has  been  an  increase  in  the 
harmony  of  these  parts,  and  consequently  in  the 
unity  of  the  whole.  Delicate  mechanisms  for  co- 
ordination have  been  developed,  and  arrangements 
whereby  one  portion  becomes  dominant  over  the  rest, 
and  so  a  material  basis  for  unification  is  given. 

In  the  fourth  place,  there  has  been  an  increase  of 
self-regulation.  The  outer  environment  changes 
from  month  to  month,  from  hour  to  hour.  The  more 
complex  products  of  evolution  are  in  high  degree 
exempt  from  the  consequences  of  these  changes, 
through  being  the  possessors  of  a  constant  internal 
environment  which,  beyond  the  narrowest  limits,  it 
is  most  difficult  to  alter. 

Fifthly,  there  has  been  an  increase  in  the  possi- 
bility of  bringing  past  experience  to  bear  on  present 
problems.  At  the  base  is  the  power  of  modifying 
normal  reactions  with  repetition;  then  come  some 


30  ESSAYS   OF 'A   BIOLOGIST 

simple  degrees  of  memory;  then  associative  memory, 
as  in  birds  and  mammals,  for  whom  most  reactions 
are  not  given  in  the  inherited  constitution,  but  must 
be  learnt;  then  rational  memory,  in  which  the  power 
of  generalization  liberates  life  from  blind  dependence 
upon  the  local  and  the  accidental;  and  finally  tradi- 
tion, whereby  the  amount  of  experience  available  to 
the  developing  race  is  not  constituted  merely  by  the 
isolated  and  limited  experiences  of  its  members,  but 
by  their  sum.  More  and  more  of  the  past  becomes 
directly  operative  in  the  present;  further  and  further 
into  the  future  can  the  aim  of  the  present  extend. 

Finally  we  can  conclude  with  a  high  degree  of  cer- 
tainty that  the  psychical  faculties — of  knowing,  feel- 
ing, and  willing — have  increased  in  intensity,  and 
also  in  their  relative  importance  for  the  life  of  the 
individual  organism. 

We  have  condensed  our  summary  into  these  six 
general  statements;  if  we  wish  to  reach  a  still  more 
general  form,  the  most  general  form  possible,  we  can 
redistil  it  thus:  During  the  course  of  evolution  in 
time,  there  has  been  an  increase  in  the  control  exerted 
by  organisms  over  their  environment,  and  in  their 
independence  with  regard  to  it;  there  has  been  an  in- 
crease in  the  harmony  of  the  parts  of  organisms;  and 
there  has  been  an  increase  in  the  psychical  powers 
of  organisms,  an  increase  of  willing,  of  feeling,  and 
of  knowing. 

This  increase  has  not  been  universal;  many  organ- 
isms  have  remained  stationary  or  have  even   re- 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  31 

gressed;  many  have  shown  increase  in  one  particular 
but  not  in  others.  But  the  upper  level  of  these  prop- 
erties of  living  matter  has  been  continually  raised, 
their  average  has  continually  increased.  It  is  to  this 
increase,  continuous  during  evolutionary  time,  in  the 
average  and  especially  in  the  upper  level  of  these 
properties  that,  I  venture  to  think,  the  term  biolog- 
ical progress  can  be  properly  applied. 

Used  thus  it  is  no  more  an  a  priori  or  an  undefined 
concept.  It  is  a  name  for  a  complicated  set  of  actual 
phenomena,  and  if,  with  progress  thus  defined,  we 
were  to  speak  of  a  law  of  progress  in  evolution,  we 
should  be  using  the  term  law  in  a  perfectly  legiti- 
mate way,  as  denoting  a  generalization  based  on  ob- 
served facts,  and  not  as  pre-supposing  any  vitalistic 
principle  of  perfectibility,  any  necessary  and  mys- 
terious tendency  of  organisms  to  advance  independ- 
ently of  circumstances. 

The  gas  laws  state  that  the  pressure  of  a  gas  kept 
at  constant  volume  increases  in  a  particular  way  with 
increase  of  temperature.  Now  the  pressure  of  a  con- 
fined gas  depends  on  the  rate  at  which  its  particles 
bombard  the  walls  in  which  they  are  contained,  and 
the  speed  at  which  they  are  travelling.  In  a  gas 
whose  temperature  is  raised,  many  particles  will,  at 
any  given  moment,  be  travelling  more  slowly  than 
the  average  rate  when  it  was  cooler,  many  even 
which  had  been  travelling  fast  may  now  be  travelling 
slowly.  None  the  less,  the  average  speed  of  all  the 
particles  is  greater;  and  this  and  nothing  else  is  what 


32  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

with  perfect  justification  we  sum  up  as  our  law. 

In  biological  evolution,  some  organisms  degener- 
ate, some  remain  stationary,  but  the  average  of  cer- 
tain properties,  and  more  especially  their  upper  level, 
increases;  and  this  tendency  for  certain  properties  to 
become  more  marked,  this  and  nothing  else,  is  what 
we  sum  up  and  generalize,  again  with  perfect  justifi- 
cation, as  the  law  of  biological  progress. 

The  mechanism  of  biological  progress  demands  a 
word:  for  it  is  noticeable  that  a  mere  fact,  however 
well  attested,  makes  a  very  different  kind  of  impres- 
sion from  a  fact  explained  and  brought  into  relation 
with  the  rest  of  our  knowledge.  The  impression  is 
either  less  powerful;  or  else,  an  explanation  being 
sought  for,  an  erroneous  one  is  found.  It  was  Dar- 
win's great  merit  that,  not  content  with  the  piling  up 
of  evidence  in  favour  of  the  reality  of  Evolution,  he 
at  the  same  time  advanced  a  theory  which  made  it 
at  least  possible  to  understand  how  Evolution  could 
have  come  to  pass  as  a  natural  process.  The  effect 
was  multiplicative  on  men's  minds,  not  merely  ad- 
ditive, for  facts  are  too  bulky  to  be  lugged  about 
conveniently  except  on  wheels  of  theory. 

The  fact  of  biological  progress  has  struck  many  ob- 
servers. Some  have  been  content  to  believe  that  the 
single  magic  formula  of  "Natural  Selection"  would 
explain  it  adequately  and  without  further  trouble,  for- 
getting that  there  must  be  at  least  some  points  of 
difference  between  a  natural  selection  producing  a 
degenerate  type  and  natural  selection  leading  to  prog- 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND  OTHER  33 

gress.  Some  biologists  have  lumped  it,  together 
with  all  other  evolutionary  processes  which  seem  to 
show  us  a  development  along  predetermined  lines, 
under  the  head  of  orthogenesis — the  (hypothetical!) 
tendency  of  organisms  to  unfold  just  one  type  of 
hidden  potentiality.  Bergson  has  been  particularly 
struck  with  it :  refuses  to  allow  that  it  can  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  Natural  Selection  or  any  determin- 
ist  process,  and  ascribes  it  to  his  elan  vital. 

Here,  as  so  often  elsewhere,  Bergson  reveals  him- 
self as  a  good  poet  but  a  bad  scientist.  His  intellec- 
tual vision  of  evolution  as  a  fact,  as  something  hap- 
pening, something  whole,  to  be  apprehended  in  a 
unitary  way — that  is  unsurpassed.  He  seems  to  see 
it  as  vividly  as  you  or  I  might  see  a  hundred  yards 
race,  holding  its  different  incidents  and  movements 
all  in  his  mind  together  to  form  one  picture.  But  he 
then  goes  on  to  give  a  symbolic  description  of  what 
he  sees — and  then  thinks  that  his  symbols  will  serve 
in  place  of  analytic  explanations.  There  is  an  "urge 
of  life";  and  it  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  urging  life  up 
the  steps  of  progress.  But  to  say  that  biological 
progress  is  explained  by  the  elan  vital  is  to  say  that 
the  movement  of  a  train  is  "explained"  by  an  elan 
locomotif  of  the  engine:  it  is  to  fall  into  the  error,  so 
often  condemned  in  scientists  by  philosophers,  and 
ridiculed  in  both  by  satirists,  of  hanging  or  at  least 
disposing  of  a  difficulty  by  giving  it  a  long  name. 

Let  us  think  of  the  condition  of  life  on  earth  at 
any  given  moment  of  her  evolution.    Certain  possi- 


34  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

bilities  have  been  realized  by  her — others  have  not. 
To  take  a  trenchant  example,  before  the  Carbonifer- 
ous or  thereabouts,  the  vertebrates  had  not  realized 
their  possibilities  of  terrestrial  existence — nearly  half 
the  globe's  surface  lay  waiting  to  be  colonized  by 
backboned  animals.  The  earth's  surface  was  con- 
quered then — but  the  air  remained  unsubdued  be- 
fore the  mid-Secondary.  In  every  period,  there  must 
be  not  only  actual  gaps  unfilled  in  the  economy  of 
nature — such  and  such  an  animal  is  without  para- 
sites, such  and  such  a  hot  spring  or  salt  lake  is  with- 
out tenants;  but  also  improvements  can  be  made  in 
existing  types  of  organization — a  tapeworm  could  be 
more  firmly  attached,  a  salt-lake  shrimp  could  toler- 
ate an  even  higher  concentration  of  brine. 

These  two  sorts  of  possibilities  really  overlap.  For 
instance,  an  increased  efficiency  of  vision  must  be 
an  improvement  in  pre-existing  structures  and  crea- 
tures; it  also  involves  the  conquest  of  new  regions 
of  environment,  and  so  in  a  real  sense  the  occupation 
of  a  new  biological  niche. 

In  any  case,  the  changes  which  would  confer  ad- 
vantage in  the  struggle  for  existence  may  take  place 
in  any  direction — with,  or  against,  or  at  right  angles 
to  the  stream  of  progress.  By  means  of  those  which 
march  with  that  stream,  the  upper  level  of  life's 
attainment  is  raised.  But  the  struggle  still  goes  on: 
and  again,  starting  from  this  new  condition,  there 
will  be  variations  in  every  direction  which  will  have 
survival  value,  and  some  of  these  will  be  progressive; 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  35 

and  SO  the  upper  level  will  be  once  more  raised. 

The  process  will  take  time,  for,  whatever  theory  of 
variation  we  may  hold  ^ — the  old  idea  of  small  con- 
tinuous variations;  or  that  of  large  mutations  big 
enough  to  produce  new  species  at  one  jump;  or  the 
most  probable  theory  of  numerous  small  mutations 
— they  one  and  all  must  grant  that  the  largest  varia- 
tion occurring  at  one  time  in  a  living  species  is  in- 
finitesimal in  comparison  with  the  secular  changes  of 
evolution. 

There  will  further  be  a  premium  upon  progressive 
changes,  since  a  progressive  change  will  generally 
land  its  possessor  in  virgin  soil,  so  to  speak;  if  not 
in  an  actually  new  physical  environment,  then  in 
a  biologically  new  situation.  The  placental  mam- 
mal occupies  the  same  dry  land  as  did  the  wonderful 
reptilian  types  of  the  Secondary  epoch.  But  con- 
stant temperature  and  embryonic  nutrition  within 
its  mother  provide  delicately  adjusted  conditions  in 
the  early  phases  of  development  which  in  their  turn 
enabled  a  more  elaborate  and  more  delicately  re- 
sponding brain  machinery  to  be  constructed  in  de- 
velopment, and  so  advanced  their  possessors  on  to 
new  shores  of  control  and  independence. 

There  will  thus  be  a  constant  biological  pressure 
(to  use  a  term  which,  though  still  symbolic,  a  mere 
analogy,  is  less  misleading  and  question-begging  than 
elan  vital)  tending  to  push  some  of  life  on  to  new 
levels  of  attainment,  new  steps  in  progress,  because 

,?5ee  Babcock  and  Clausen,  '19. 


36  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

any  variations  in  that  direction  will  have  selection 
value,  a  selection  value  above  the  ordinary.  And 
the  process  will  be  a  gradual  one,  because  variations 
are  not  very  large;  so  that  life  no  more  realizes  all 
potentialities  of  progress  at  once  than  did  the  United 
States  or  any  other  new  country  receive  a  uniform 
population  over  all  its  extent  as  soon  as  it  was  dis- 
covered, but  had  its  people  move  in  from  the  coasts 
in  a  regular  and  orderly  advance. 

There  are  plenty  of  parallels  from  human  affairs. 
Indeed,  the  evolutionist  can  often  gain  valuable  light 
on  his  subject,  on  what  one  may  call  the  economics 
of  the  process,  by  turning  to  study  the  development 
of  human  inventions  and  machines.  There,  although 
the  ways  in  which  variations  arise,  and  the  way  they 
are  transmitted,  are  different  from  those  of  organic 
evolution,  yet  the  type  of  "pressure,"  the  perpetual 
struggle,  and  the  advantage  of  certain  kinds  of  varia- 
tion therein — these  are  in  essence  really  similar. 

What  could  be  more  striking  than  the  parallel  be- 
tween the  rise  of  the  mammals  to  dominance  over  the 
reptiles,  and  the  rise  of  the  motor  vehicle  to  domi- 
nance over  that  drawn  by  horses? 

In  both  cases,  a  comparatively  long  period  in  which 
the  new  type  is  in  a  precarious  and  experimental 
stage,  only  just  managing  to  exist,  of  small  size  and 
rare  occurrence,  and  in  no  real  sense  a  serious  rival 
to  its  old-established  competitors.  Then,  suddenly, 
a  change.  It  reaches  a  level  at  which  it  can  effec- 
tively compete  with  them.    What  happens?     In  the 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  37 

case  both  of  man-made  machine  and  evolving  verte- 
brate group,  there  is  first  a  sudden  increase  in  num- 
bers of  the  new,  a  corresponding  decrease  in  numbers 
of  the  old  type.  The  upper  level  of  size  of  the  new 
type  also  begins  to  increase,  and  it  begins  to  split  up 
into  a  great  number  of  differentiated  sub-types. 
Some  of  these  sub-types  become  extinct,  others,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  gradually  improved,  while  still 
others  undergo  such  rapid  change  as  to  merit  the 
style  of  new  sub-types.  The  upper  level  of  size, 
complexity,  and  efficiency  increase,  both  in  animal 
and  machine. 

It  is  as  well  to  remember  that  survival-value  means 
only  what  it  says.  A  variation  with  survival-value 
helps  its  possessors  to  survive:  it  is  not  the  best  pos- 
sible variation  of  the  kind.  In  the  developing  motor- 
car, the  substitution  of  four  for  one  or  two  cylinders 
was  a  great  improvement.  It  had  "survival-value"; 
and  not  until  the  majority  of  cars  came  to  be  four- 
cylindered  was  the  additional  advantage  of  six  or 
eight  cylinders  large  enough  to  bring  them  into  ex- 
istence as  dominant  types. 

To  the  interrelated  evolution  of  carnivore  and 
herbivore,  again,  leading  to  increase  of  size  and  speed 
in  both,  of  wariness  in  one,  of  tooth  and  claw  in  the 
other,  we  have  again  a  close  parallel  in  the  interre- 
lated evolution  of  armour-plating  and  of  projectiles. 
Here  again  the  process  is  gradual.  We  can  further 
see  that  the  sudden  "development"  of  full  modern 
armour  on  the  first  iron-clad  would  have  been  ac- 


38  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

tually  disadvantageous,  since  it  would  have  reduced 
its  speed  relatively  to  other  less  heavily  protected 
ships,  without  conferring  any  corresponding  benefit 
in  the  way  of  defence  against  the  comparatively  in- 
efficient projectiles  of  the  day.  Only  when  the  range 
and  piercing  power  of  the  projectiles  increased  did 
increase  of  armour  become  imperative. 

To  resume  our  pressure  analogy,  the  natural  in- 
crease of  all  organisms  leads  to  a  "biological  pres- 
sure." So  long  as  a  species  remains  unchanged,  so 
long  must  it  stay  subjected  to  the  full  force  of  this 
pressure.  But  if  it  changes  in  such  a  way  that  it 
can  occupy  a  new  niche  in  environment,  it  is  expand- 
ing into  a  vacuum  or  a  region  of  lower  pressure. 
Natural  increase  soon  fills  this  up  to  the  same  level 
of  pressure,  and  conditions  thus  become  favourable 
for  expansion  into  new  low-pressure  areas  previously 
out  of  reach  of  the  normal  range  of  variation.  Va- 
riation towards  such  "low-pressure"  regions  may  be 
progressive,  retrogressive,  or  neutral:  but  it  is  ob- 
vious that  at  each  stage  of  evolution  there  will  al- 
ways be  a  low-pressure  fringe,  representing  a  con- 
siderable fraction  of  the  "low-pressure"  area  within 
the  range  of  variability,  the  occupation  of  which 
would  be  biologically  progressive. 

Thus  from  the  well-established  biological  premisses 
of  ( 1 )  the  tendency  to  geometrical  increase  with  con- 
sequent struggle  for  existence,  (2)  some  form  of 
inherited  variability,  we  can  deduce  as  necessary 
consequence,  not  only  the  familiar  but  none  the  less 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  39 

fundamental  fact  of  Natural  Selection,  but  also  the 
almost  neglected  fact  that  a  certain  fraction  of  the 
guiding  force  of  Natural  Selection  will  inevitably  be 
pushing  organisms  into  changes  that  are  progressive. 

This  will  of  course  be  true  only  so  far  as  the  gen- 
eral conditions  of  the  environment  remain  within 
certain  limits:  it  is  probable  that  too  great  reduc- 
tions of  temperature  or  moisture  on  the  surface  of 
the  earth  would  lead  to  a  gradual  reversal  of  progress 
before  the  final  extinction  of  life.  Up  to  the  present, 
however,  it  is  clear  that  such  conditions  have  not  oc- 
curred, or,  possibly,  have  occurred  only  for  short 
periods.  The  general  state  has  been  one  in  which 
steady,  slow  progress  has  been  achieved.  Progress, 
like  adaptation,  is  in  pre-human  evolution  almost 
entirely  the  resultant  of  blind  chance  and  blind 
necessity. 

What  corollaries  and  conclusions  may  be  drawn 
from  the  establishment  of  the  fact  of  biological  prog- 
ress? In  the  first  place,  it  permits  us  to  treat  hu- 
man progress  as  a  special  case  of  a  more  general 
process.  Biologically  speaking,  the  human  species  is 
young — not  perhaps  still  in  infancy,  but  certainly  not 
yet  attained  to  any  stable  maturity.  The  concep- 
tion, common  enough  in  much  traditional  thought, 
that  man  as  a  species  is  old,  far  removed  from  all 
pristine  vigour  and  power,  is  demonstrably  untrue. 
The  genus  Homo  has  not  yet  adapted  itself  to  the 
new  conditions  and  the  new  possibilities  arising  out 
of  the  acquisition  of  reason  and  tradition.     Its  his- 


40  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

tory  so  far  is  a  record  of  experiment  after  experiment. 
From  a  period  so  short  and  so  empirical  it  is  impos- 
sible to  deduce  any  general  law  of  progress.  In  cer- 
tain respects,  as  we  shall  see  more  in  detail  later, 
there  has  been  advance;  in  others,  the  species  has 
been  stationary.  But  whether  humanity  in  this  or 
that  particular  has  progressed  is  for  the  moment  com- 
paratively immaterial.  Humanity  is  part  of  life,  a 
product  of  life's  movement;  and  in  life  as  a  whole 
there  is  progress.® 

What  is  more,  there  was  progress  before  man  ever 
appeared  on  the  earth,  and  its  reality  would  have 
been  in  no  way  impaired  even  if  he  had  never  come 
into  being.  His  rise  only  continued,  modified,  and 
accelerated  a  process  that  had  been  in  operation  since 
the  dawn  of  life. 

Here  we  fmd,  in  the  intellectual  sphere  at  least, 
that  assurance  which  men  have  been  seeking  from 
the  first.  We  see  revealed,  in  the  fact  of  evolution- 
ary progress,  that  the  forces  of  nature  conspire  to- 
gether to  produce  results  which  have  value  in  our 
eyes,  that  man  has  no  right  to  feel  helpless  or  with- 
out support  in  a  cold  and  meaningless  cosmos,  to  be- 
lieve that  he  must  face  and  fight  forces  which  are 
definitively  hostile.  Although  he  must  attack  the 
problems  of  existence  in  a  new  way,  yet  his  face  is 
set  in  the  same  direction  as  the  main  tide  of  evolving 
life,  and  his  highest  destiny,  the  end  towards  which 
he  has  so  long  perceived  that  he  must  strive,  is  to 

»  See  Conklin,  72. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  41 

extend  to  new  possibilities  the  process  with  which, 
for  all  these  millions  of  years,  nature  has  already 
been  busy,  to  introduce  less  and  less  wasteful  meth- 
ods, to  accelerate  by  means  of  his  consciousness  what 
in  the  past  has  been  the  work  of  blind  unconscious 
forces.     "In  la  sua  volontade  e  nostra  pace." 

For  this  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  facts  of 
evolution — that  consciousness,  until  a  very  late  pe- 
riod, has  played  in  it  a  negligible  part.  Indeed  the 
rise  of  consciousness  to  become  a  factor  of  impor- 
tance in  evolution  has  been  one  of  the  most  notable 
single  items  of  progress.  Darwin  gave  the  death- 
blow to  teleology  by  showing  that  apparently  pur- 
posive structures  could  arise  by  means  of  a  non-pur- 
posive mechanism.  "Purpose"  is  a  term  invented 
to  denote  a  particular  operation  of  the  human  mind, 
and  should  only  be  used  where  a  psychological  basis 
may  reasonably  be  postulated.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  result  can  be  attained  by  conscious  purpose  with- 
out the  waste  of  time  and  of  living  material  needed 
by  the  indirect  method  of  natural  selection;  and  thus 
the  substitution  of  purposed  for  unpurposed  progress 
is  itself  a  step  in  progress. 

As  another  corollary  of  our  concept  of  progress,  it 
follows  that  we  can  and  should  consider,  not  only  the 
direction  of  any  evolutionary  process,  but  also  its 
rate. 

An  evolutionary  process,  if  it  is  to  be  considered 
progressive,  must  have  a  component  in  one  particu- 
lar direction — a  direction  which  we  have  already  de- 


42  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

fined.  But  this  is  not  all;  for  even  if  it  be  moving 
in  the  right  direction,  and  yet  be  moving  extremely 
slowly,  it  may,  if  it  have  any  interaction  with  a  much 
more  rapid  progressive  movement,  actually  exert  a 
drag  on  this;  its  relative  motion — relative  to  the 
main  current  of  progress — will  be  backwards,  and  we 
may  have  to  class  it  as  the  reverse  of  progressive. 
For  example,  the  interaction  of  carnivore  and  herbi- 
vore, pursuer  and  pursued,  led  during  the  develop- 
ment of  the  vertebrates  to  the  evolution  of  much  that 
was  good — speed,  strength,  alertness,  and  acuity  of 
sense — and  of  many  noble  types  of  living  things. 
But  with  the  advent  of  man,  different  methods  have 
been  introduced,  new  modes  of  competition  and  ad- 
vance; and  the  tiger  and  the  wolf  not  only  cease  to 
be  agents  of  progress  in  its  new  form,  but  definitely 
stand  in  its  way  and  must  be  stamped  out,  or  at 
least  reduced  to  a  condition  in  which  they  can  no 
longer  interfere  as  active  agents  in  evolution. 

Some  such  considerations  as  these  will  help  per- 
haps to  resolve  various  difficulties  of  ethics — how,  for 
instance,  that  which  seems  good  to  me  may  seem  evil 
to  another.  Even  the  good,  if  it  be  a  drag  on  the 
better,  is  evil.  Expressed  thus,  the  proposition  is  a 
paradox;  but  expressed  in  terms  of  direction  and  rela- 
tive speed,  it  is  at  once  intelligible. 

But  the  test  of  any  such  general  biological  theory 
as  I  have  outlined  will  be  its  application  to  human 
problems.     And  here  too,  1  venture  to  say,  the  value 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  43 

of  biological  method  is  apparent.  What  we  ask,  and 
rightly  ask,  is  whether  in  the  laws  of  biological  prog- 
ress we  can  find  any  principle  which  we  can  apply 
directly  to  guide  us  in  devising  methods  for  human 
progress. 

I  do  not  propose  to  follow  the  example  of  many 
rather  hasty  philosophers  and  biologists,  who  have 
thought  that,  whenever  the  study  of  lower  organisms 
permitted  the  promulgation  of  a  biological  law,  such 
law  can  be  lifted  bodily  from  its  context  and  be  ap- 
plied without  modification  to  human  affairs.  Man 
is  an  organism — but  a  very  exceptional  and  peculiar 
organism.  Any  biological  law  which  epitomizes  only 
facts  about  the  lower  creatures  is  not  a  general  bio- 
logical law,  for  general  biological  laws  must  take  ac- 
count not  only  of  plants  and  animals,  but  of  man  as 
well.  In  practice,  however,  the  simplest  method  is 
to  frame  our  biological  laws  without  considering 
man,  and  then  to  see  in  what  way  they  must  be 
modified  if  they  are  to  be  applied  to  him. 

Man  differs  biologically  from  other  organisms  in 
the  following  main  ways.  First,  he  has  the  power 
of  thinking  in  concepts;  in  other  words,  his  power  of 
learning  by  experience  is  not  always  conditioned  di- 
rectly by  the  accidents  of  his  own  life,  as  is  the  case 
with  animals  endowed  only  with  associative  memory, 
but  he  can,  by  reaching  the  general  from  the  special, 
attain  to  the  possibility  of  dealing  with  many  more, 
and    more    complicated,    eventualities.    Next,    by 


44  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

means  of  speech,  writing,  and  printing,  he  has  devel- 
oped a  new  mode  of  inheritance.^^  Each  community, 
and  indeed  humanity  as  a  whole,  transmits  its  pe- 
culiarities to  later  ages  by  means  of  tradition,  using 
that  word  in  its  largest  sense.  Physical  inheritance 
of  the  same  type  as  in  all  higher  animals  and  plants 
is  the  necessary  basis,  but  the  distinctive  characters 
of  any  civilization  are  based  on  this  new  tradition- 
inheritance.  Thirdly,  the  type  of  mind  which  has 
been  evolved  in  man  is  much  more  plastic — a  much 
more  elastic  and  flexible  mechanism  than  any  tool 
previously  evolved  by  life  for  handling  the  problems 
of  existence.  As  a  consequence  of  this  we  have  the 
substitution  of  general  educability  for  specific  in- 
stincts. For  the  power  of  performing  comparatively 
few  actions  smoothly  and  without  trouble,  there  is 
exchanged  the  possibility  of  a  vastly  increased  range 
of  action,  but  one  which  has  to  be  learnt.  As  an- 
other consequence,  man  has  come  by  the  power — im- 
possible to  any  other  organism — of  leading  what  is 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  multiple  existence.  It 
is  for  this  very  reason  difficult  to  fit  man  into  many 
of  the  ordinary  biological  categories.  The  physical 
and  mental  structure  and  the  mode  of  life  of  even 
the  highest  of  the  animals  are  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses a  fixed  quantity.  An  ant,  for  all  its  delicacy 
of  adjustment,  is  little  less  than  a  sentient  cog  shaped 
to  fit  in  just  one  way  into  the  machinery  of  the  com- 
munity; a  dog,  for  all  his  power  of  learning,  is  tied 
down  and  imprisoned  within  a  rigidity  and  narrow- 

10  See  Carr-Saunders,  '22. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL    AND   OTHER  45 

ness  of  bodily  and  mental  organization  difficult  for 
us  to  imagine. 

Man  passes  freely  from  one  aggregation  to  another. 
He  can  change  his  nation  or  his  city;  he  can  belong 
to  a  dozen  organizations — biologically  speaking,  can 
be  aggregated  in  a  dozen  different  ways — and  play 
a  different  part  as  unit  in  each.  He  can  follow  one 
profession  in  the  morning,  another  at  night,  and  be  a 
hobby-horse  rider  in  between. 

This  plastic  mind  has  endowed  him  with  a  new 
biological  possibility.  He  can  do  what  no  other  or- 
ganism can — he  can  be  both  specialized  and  general- 
ized at  one  and  the  same  time. 

In  biology,  the  aggregation  of  units  to  form  units 
of  higher  grade  has  been  always  followed  by  division 
of  labour  among  the  units;  and  this  division  of  la- 
bour has,  in  all  infrahuman  history,  been  made  pos- 
sible only  by  an  irreversible  specialization.^^  A  sol- 
dier-ant is  a  soldier,  and  there  its  possibilities  end. 
It  cannot  do  what  the  worker  or  the  queen  can  do. 
A  muscle-cell,  because  it  has  gained  the  power  to 
contract,  is  cut  off  from  other  possibilities;  it  cannot 
secrete,  or  digest,  or  carry  messages.  The  aggregate 
of  nerve-cells  which  makes  the  physical  basis  of  mind 
is  held  fixed  to  its  post,  incapable  of  turning  to  other 
functions. 

It  follows  that  the  units  of  all  such  aggregates  are 
subordinate  to  the  whole — they  have  lost  their  inde- 
pendence, and  can  often  no  longer  be  considered  as 

11  See  Huxley,  '12. 


46  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

individuals  at  all,  except  historically.  But  in  man, 
none  of  these  things  hold.  A  man  can  for  half  his 
day  be  the  merest  cog,  subordinate  in  every  detail 
of  his  action  to  the  needs  of  the  community,  but  fof 
the  other  half  be  himself,  a  full  and  complete  indi- 
viduality, making  the  community  serve  his  own  ends 
and  needs.  For  him,  aggregation  does  not  mean 
complete  and  irreversible  subordination;  his  spe- 
cialization is  reversible,  and  indeed  his  potentialities 
as  an  individual  actually  increase  with  the  increased 
individuality  of  the  aggregate  to  which  he  belongs. 

Bearing  these  differences  in  mind,  we  may  turn  to 
consider  how  our  doctrine  of  progress  helps  us  in 
studying  humanity. 

At  the  outset  we  must  guard  ourselves  against  the 
idea  that  human  society  has  reached  any  high  level 
of  biological  individuation.  I  may  perhaps  quote 
from  what  I  have  written  elsewhere:  'if  we  were 
to  draw  a  parallel  between  primitive  types  of  society 
and  some  primitive  mammal  such  as  a  duck-billed 
platypus,  and  to  compare  the  course  which  we  hope 
society  will  in  time  accomplish  with  what  has  been 
accomplished  in  the  progress  of  the  mammalian  type 
from  a  creature  resembling  the  platypus  up  to  man, 
with  what  creature  should  we  have  to  compare  the 
existing  state  of  human  communities?  I  venture 
to  say  that  we  should  be  flattering  ourselves  if  we 
were  to  fix  upon  the  dog." 

Then  we  must  remember  that  Natural  Selection 
jn  man  has  fallen  chiefly  upon  groups,  not  upon 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  47 

individuals,  and  differences  in  the  nature  and  or- 
ganization of  human  groups  are  determined  chiefly 
by  what  we  can  best  sum  up  as  differences  of  tradi- 
tion in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term.  The  later  his- 
tory of  mankind,  from  a  period  long  antedating  writ- 
ten records,  has  been  one  of  the  rapid  rise  and  equally 
rapid  extinction,  not  only  of  one  group-unit  after 
another,  but  of  one  type  of  group-unit  after  another. 
It  is  further  obvious  at  first  glance  that  the  group- 
units,  the  types  of  society  which  are  at  present  domi- 
nant, are  far  from  perfect  and  far  from  stable,  and 
indeed  that  they  are  evolving,  with  speed  of  change 
hitherto  unsurpassed,  towards  new  and  unknown 
forms. 

When  the  mammalian  type  first  became  dominant 
on  the  globe — at  the  transition  between  the  Sec- 
ondary and  Tertiary  periods — a  somewhat  similar 
history  was  passed  through.  The  new  type  of  or- 
ganization gave  its  possessors  marked  advantages 
over  other  animal  types:  but  the  full  potentialities 
of  the  mammal  (excluding  man)  were  not  realized 
until  well  over  half  of  the  Tertiary  period  had 
elapsed,  and  man  was  being  prepared  in  the  womb  of 
circumstance.  The  Pliocene  sees  the  triumph  of  the 
perfected  types  of  mammal:  the  preceding  Miocene, 
broadly  speaking,  sees  the  first  rise  of  these  new 
types,  while  the  Eocene  and  Oligocene  show  us  a 
rapid  rise  and  as  rapid  extinction  of  variation  upon 
variation  on  the  original  theme.^^    With  man,  how- 

12 See  Woodward,  '98;  Osborn,  '10. 


48  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ever,  only  the  beginnings  of  a  similar  process  have  as 
yet  come  to  pass. 

Further,  we  must  distinguish  clearly  between  the 
different  ways  in  which  progress  may  be  operative  in 
man.  In  the  first  place  it  can  appear,  as  we  have 
just  pointed  out,  in  the  organization  of  the  com- 
munities to  which  he  belongs  and  on  which  natural 
selection  seems  mainly  to  act.  Secondly,  it  can  ap- 
pear as  a  raising  of  the  average  of  certain  qualities 
among  the  individuals  composing  those  communi- 
ties. And  thirdly,  it  can  appear  as  a  raising  of  the 
upper  level  of  attainment  in  those  qualities,  in  the 
appearance  of  individuals  biologically  higher  than 
any  that  have  previously  existed. 

This  last  point  may  be  first  dealt  with.  It  has 
often  been  urged  as  an  argument  against  the  doctrine 
of  progress  that  we  can  trace  no  advance  in  the  ca- 
pabilities of  the  individual  man  throughout  history, 
and  it  has  even  been  asserted  that  no  such  advance 
has  occurred  during  pre-history.  To  this  latter  criti- 
cism there  is  the  obvious  reply  that  at  some  period 
there  was  an  origin  of  human  from  non-human  or- 
ganisms, and  that  during  the  period  of  transition  at 
least  (and  probably  for  a  considerable  time  after- 
ward) there  naturally  must  have  been  a  raising  of 
the  upper  level  of  attainments,  and  still  more  of  pos- 
sibility. The  main  point  at  issue,  however,  is  not  to 
be  gainsaid.  It  appears  ^^  that  comparatively  early 
in  the  evolution  of  man,  there  appeared,  in  some 

13  See  Carr-Saunders,  '22. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  49 

branches  of  the  stock,  a  type  of  mental  organization 
which  has  not  yet  been  improved  upon.  An  indi- 
vidual possessing  it  is  capable,  when  developing  in 
proper  environment  (the  most  important  single  ele- 
ments of  which  are  the  organization  and  tradition  of 
the  community  to  which  he  belongs)  of  attaining  to 
possibilities  which,  measured  in  terms  of  the  poten- 
tialities of  any  previous  organism,  are  wellnigh 
boundless.  He  can  survey  the  whole  of  mankind, 
penetrate  the  future  with  prophecy,  bring  the  gamut 
of  experience  within  a  work  of  art,  discover  the  laws 
by  which  the  universe  operates.  Judged  thus,  Goethe 
is  no  greater  and  no  less  great  than  Leonardo, 
Shakespeare  than  Dante  or  ^schylus,  Darwin  than 
Pasteur,  Kant  than  Plato. 

The  best  type  of  human  mind  operating  to  the  best 
advantage,  is  introduced  to  possibilities  so  vast  in 
comparison  with  its  paltry  span  of  existence  that  it 
can  never  realize  more  than  a  fraction  of  them. 
Furthermore,  since  the  incidence  of  natural  selection 
has  fallen,  from  long  before  historical  time,  upon  the 
community  and  its  traditions  far  more  than  upon  the 
individual,  and  since  the  conditions  under  which  the 
possibilities  of  the  individual,  can  be  even  qualitatively 
realized  have  been  rarely  forthcoming,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  level  of  possibility  itself  has  not  been 
raised.  Indeed,  only  too  often  there  has  been  re- 
versed selection,  and  the  exceptional  man  has  suf- 
fered from  his  exceptional  endowments. 

There  is  no  theoretical  objection  whatever  to  the 


50  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

idea  that  new  types  of  mind,  new  modes  of  thought, 
new  levels  of  attainment,  could  be  reached  by  life: 
the  mental  difference  between  low  types  of  men  and 
men  of  genius  is  almost  as  great  as  that  between  man 
and  ape.  The  difference  in  practical  intelligence  be- 
tween a  hen,  a  dog,  a  chimpanzee,  and  a  man  is 
largely  a  difference  in  the  complexity  of  the  situa- 
tions which  can  be  grasped  as  a  whole  so  that  the 
right  way  out  is  adopted  as  the  result  of  this  unitary 
comprehension.^^  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
other  types  of  mental  mechanism  are  possible  which 
would  make  our  grasp  of  complex  situations  appear 
pitiful  and  hen-like  in  its  limitations,  which  would 
enable  their  possessors  to  see  and  solve  in  a  flash 
where  we  can  only  grope  and  guess  or  at  best  calcu- 
late laboriously  and  step  by  step.  But  this  will  not 
take  place,  first  until  the  community-environment  is 
made  as  favourable  as  possible  for  such  development, 
and  secondly  until  there  is  begun  a  deliberate  bio- 
logical encouragement  of  new  possibilities  of  intui- 
tion, say,  or  of  communication  between  mind  and 
mind. 

As  regards  the  second  point,  the  raising  of  the 
average  as  opposed  to  the  upper  level  of  attainment, 
not  much  need  be  said.  That  part  of  our  civiliza- 
tion which  can  be  thought  of  as  progressive  is  largely 
concerned  with  this  very  thing — with  making  it  pos- 
sible for  men  to  realize  in  larger  measure  their  in- 
herent possibilities.     Further,  in  so  far  as  there  exists 

"See  Kohler,  '21. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  51 

selection  within  the  community,  it  largely,  under 
present  conditions,  encourages  qualities  such  as  in- 
telligence and  initiative,  which  are  biologically  pro- 
gressive. And  finally,  when  Eugenics  shall  become 
practical  politics,  its  action,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  will 
be  at  first  entirely  devoted  to  this  raising  of  the  aver- 
age, by  altering  the  proportion  of  good  and  bad  stock, 
and  if  possible  eliminating  the  lowest  strata,  in  a 
genetically  mixed  population. ^^ 

Since,  however,  the  main  stress  in  human  evolu- 
tion has  been  upon  the  community  and  upon  tradi- 
tion, it  is  here  that  we  shall  expect  to  find  most  defi- 
nite evidences  of  progress,  and  it  is  here  that  we  do 
in  fact  find  them. 

We  have  in  the  first  place  the  increase  of  the  size  of 
units,  familiar  to  us  already  in  lower  forms.  This, 
however,  is  tending  to  a  limit,  which  will  be  attained 
when  the  present  competition  of  sovereign  states  has 
been  replaced  (as,  if  we  can  read  the  future  from  the 
past,  it  inevitably  will  be)  by  some  form  of  federa- 
tion covering  the  globe.  We  find  an  immense  in- 
crease of  control  over  environment — a  theme  so  hack- 
neyed as  to  need  no  labouring.  We  find  an  almost 
equally  striking,  if  less  spectacular,  increase  in  inde- 
pendence. Man  becomes  less  and  less  at  the  mercy 
of  the  forces  of  nature  and  of  other  organisms,  at- 
tains much  more  to  self-regulation.  This  has  de- 
pended upon  increased  efllciency  of  "organs" — here 
the  extra-organismal  organs  we  call  tools  and  ma- 

"See  Whetham,  '21;  Castle,  '12. 


52  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

chines;  and  upon  increased  rapidity  and  certainty  of 
communication  both  within  and  between  units. 
There  has  been  an  almost  overwhelming  increase 
(displaying  too  not  a  uniform  but  an  accelerated 
motion)  of  knowledge,  of  the  possibilities  of  acquir- 
ing new  knowledge,  and  of  what  may  be  called  the 
"group-memory" — the  power  of  storing  and  render- 
ing knowledge  available,  and  this  in  its  turn  brings 
about  a  huge  increase  in  the  size  of  the  environment 
with  which  man  either  physically  or  mentally  comes 
into  contact. 

As  regards  increase  of  harmony  or  co-ordination, 
human  communities  have  advanced  but  little,  al- 
though in  the  increase  of  powers  of  communication 
there  has  been  laid  the  foundation  for  such  possi- 
bility. 

That  this  lack  of  progress  is  partly  due  to  the  ex- 
treme rapidity  of  change  in  type  of  unit  and  of  the 
units'  increase  in  size,  is  not  doubtful;  a  further 
ground  for  it,  however,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
human  societies  present  a  new  biological  problem, 
in  so  much  as  it  is  impossible,  man  being  what  he  is, 
to  solve  the  relationship  of  individual  and  com- 
munity, of  smaller  and  larger  unit,  in  the  simple  way 
in  which  it  has  always  been  solved  before — by  spe- 
cialization and  subordination  of  the  individuals.^^ 
The  early  development  of  codes  of  law,  codes  of 
ritual,  and  codes  of  morals  represents  the  first  at- 

i«See  the  second  essay  of  this  volume  for  fuller  discussion  of 
this  point. 


PROGRESS,   BIOLOGICAL  AND  OTHER  53 

tempt  at  a  solution  of  the  problem:  the  modern  rise 
of  arbitration  as  a  method  of  settling  disputes  be- 
tween whole  units  and  large  groups  within  units  is 
another  important  step  in  the  same  direction. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  here  that  the  most  drastic  change 
of  method  will  have  to  be  brought  into  being  if  man's 
development  is  to  continue  progressive. 

There  is,  however,  a  weighty  criticism  of  the  valid- 
ity of  human  progress.  Granted  that  human  sci- 
ence and  invention  have  made  enormous  strides,  that 
knowledge  has  increased  and  convenience  multiplied 
— is  man,  the  living,  feeling,  personal  human  being, 
any  the  better  in  essentials  for  all  of  this — has  it  not 
merely  made  life  more  complex  at  the  expense  of  its 
depth,  more  rapid  at  the  expense  of  its  tranquillity 
and  suavity?  This  is  especially  obvious  in  the  field 
of  art.  It  is  impossible  to  maintain  that  any  one  of 
a  certain  number — a  hundred,  or  perhaps  a  thousand 
— of  great  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  or  musicians  is 
greater  or  has  achieved  finer  things  than  any  other 
of  the  number.  What  is  more,  in  most  arts — no- 
tably sculpture,  painting,  and  poetry,  the  possibilities 
of  expression  and  achievement  do  not  increase,  and 
once  a  certain  pitch  of  skill  is  reached,  tend  to  ex- 
tinguish themselves  in  technique  and  virtuosity. 
When  this  happens,  new  ideas  generally  come  upon 
the  scene  and  work  up  again  from  a  relatively  primi- 
tive to  a  complicated  technique  along  a  more  or  less 
different  path — and  so  on  and  so  forth  ad  infinitum. 

This  is  not  so  true  of  architecture,  and  still  less  so 


54  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

of  music.  In  intellectual  matters  it  is  clearly  not 
true  of  mathematics,  where  each  advance  provides 
the  foundation  for  the  solution  of  more  complex 
problems,  nor,  similarly,  of  much  of  science.  But 
even  in  this  intellectual  domain,  where  the  accumu- 
lation of  knowledge  is  so  evident,  where  the  increas- 
ing difficulty  and  complexity  of  the  problems  soluble 
and  solved  is  so  remarkable — even  here  the  indi- 
vidual achievement  can  scarcely  be  properly  said  to 
increase,  certainly  not  the  individual  merit  or  the  in- 
dividual satisfaction.  Newton's  achievement  was  no 
less  splendid  because  to-day  any  fourth-rate  mathe- 
matician can  use  the  calculus,  nor  Euclid's  for  that 
his  discoveries  can  be  explained  to  every  schoolboy; 
while  for  Harvey  to  discover  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  or  for  Dalton  to  demonstrate  the  particulate 
nature  of  matter  was  certainly  no  slighter  task  than 
that  needed  to  show  the  reality  of  internal  secretion 
or  to  discover  the  infra-atomic  world  of  electrons. 
The  task  occupied  all  their  powers,  its  accomplish- 
ment satisfied  them;  and  the  powers  themselves  have 
not  increased — only  the  ways  in  which  men  have 
learned  to  use  them. 

This  criticism  has  been  partly  dealt  with  before. 
We  have  seen  that  the  present  organization  of  human 
mind  introduces  its  possessor  to  a  practical  infinitude 
of  possibility.  We  have  also  seen  that  there  is  no 
theoretical  obstacle  to  be  seen  at  present  to  an  in- 
crease of  human  powers,  be  it  in  range  of  comprehen- 
sion, intensity  of  feeling,  or  brilliance  of  intuition. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  55 

More  to  our  present  purpose  is  the  reply  that,  whereas 
in  all  these  ways  the  inherent  capabilities  have  not 
increased,  yet  the  opportunities  of  realizing  these 
capabilities  have  for  the  bulk  of  the  population  in- 
creased— in  particular,  for  instance,  of  gratifying  the 
more  complex  and  the  more  intellectual  emotions, 
with  the  multiplication  of  theatres,  of  books,  of 
pictures,  of  concerts.  Here,  for  once,  the  average 
has  advanced  more  than  the  upper  level.  Whatever 
overstress  and  maladjustment  the  complexity  of  mod- 
ern civilization  has  brought  with  it,  it  has  certainly 
made  it  easier  for  more  men  and  women  to  realize 
more  of  their  potentialities  now  than  a  thousand 
years  ago,  and  far  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
years  ago. 

There  are,  then,  these  facts  to  set  on  the  credit 
side  of  Progress'  balance-sheet.  It  is  easy  enough 
to  see  items  on  the  debit  side,  and  indeed  to  be  so 
horrifiedly  fascinated  by  it  as  not  to  have  eyes  for 
anything  else.  Human  history  is  in  one  view  but  a 
long  record  of  suffering,  oppression,  and  folly.  Slav- 
ery, torture,  religious  persecution,  war,  pestilence 
and  famine,  the  greed  of  those  who  possess  power, 
the  dirt  and  sloth  and  ignorance  of  those  who  do 
not — the  elements  of  the  picture  keep  on  recurring, 
if  not  in  the  old  forms,  then  in  new  ones.  Pain, 
disease,  disappointment,  and  death  are  inevitable. 
Even  when  a  civilization  seems  to  be  progressing, 
there  always  comes  a  time  when  it  passes  its  zenith 
and  topples  through  decay  or  defect  to  ruin.     How 


56  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

is  it  possible  to  speak  of  progress  when  at  this  pres- 
ent moment  there  are  vast  poverty-stricken  and  slum 
populations  with  all  the  great  nations,  and  when 
these  same  great  nations  have  just  been  engaged  in 
the  most  appalling  war  in  history? 

It  is  a  formidable  indictment:  but  I  venture  to  as- 
sert that  it  can  be  met  by  the  same  argument  with 
which,  in  the  realm  of  biology,  was  met  the  argu- 
ment from  degeneration. 

Such  facts  show  at  once  that  any  idea  of  inevitable 
or  of  universal  progress  is  untenable,  the  product  of 
an  irrational  idealism  which  prefers  its  own  desires 
to  reality.  They  show  further  that,  up  to  the  pres- 
ent, suffering  and  pain  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  degeneration  in  a  certain  number  of  individ- 
uals, are  as  universal  and  apparently  inevitable  in 
human  as  in  animal  evolution.  But  they  do  not 
show  that  some  sort  of  progress  may  not  have  oc- 
curred— not  necessarily  the  kind  of  progress  that 
i,ome  of  us  would  like,  not  necessarily  as  rapid  as 
could  be  desired,  but  yet  indubitably  and  solidly 
Progress.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  species  which  constitute  life,  that  which 
has  been  increased  most  obviously  is  the  upper  level 
of  certain  qualities — primitive  forms  have  persisted, 
degenerate  forms  have  arisen  side  by  side  with  and 
in  spite  of  the  steady  improvement  in  the  highest 
types.     This  has  happened  in  man  also. 

The  upper  level  of  control  and  of  independence 
in  human  group-units,  and  in  a  certain  number  of 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  57 

fortunate  individuals,  has  obviously  increased;  but 
there  are  the  slums,  there  are  the  drab  lives  of  thou- 
sands in  great  cities,  there  are  poverty,  degeneracy, 
and  crime.  All  that  we  can  say  is  that  to  many  at 
least  it  seems  theoretically  possible  that  man  should 
be  able  to  reduce  the  amount  of  degeneration,  waste, 
and  pain,  to  increase  the  changes  to  be  summed  up 
as  progressive. 

The  future  Golden  Age  of  Millenniarism  is  as  im- 
possible a  notion  as  the  past  Golden  Age  of  My- 
thology, and  more  demoralizing.  Bury,  with  pardon- 
able sarcasm,  speaks  of  the  result  hoped  for  in  it  as 
"a  menagerie  of  happy  men  ...  in  which  the  dy- 
namic character  of  history  disappears."  But  once 
we  have  accepted  (as  the  great  majority  accept)  life 
as  somehow  worth  living,  the  belief  in  progress  as- 
serts only  (though  there  is  much  in  that  "only")  that 
life  may  be  made  more  worth  living  to  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  people,  although  effort  and  failure  always 
will  and  always  must  be  conditions  of  its  operation. 
As  Goethe  said,  "Let  humanity  last  as  long  as  it  will, 
there  will  always  be  hindrances  in  its  way,  and  all 
kinds  of  distress,  to  make  it  develop  its  powers." 

It  is  important  to  remember,  what  we  have  already 
noted,  that  the  history  of  mankind  is  largely  the 
history  of  competition  between  group-units  or  com- 
munities. When  rare  communities  have  been  able 
to  escape  from  this  race  of  competition  and  have 
deliberately  devoted  the  energy  and  resources  thus 
set  free  to  better  community-regulation  and  an  im- 


58  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

provement  in  the  lives  of  the  individuals  composing 
them,  then,  like  Denmark,  they  have  moved  rapidly 
along  a  path  of  real  progress.  Once  an  efficient 
federation  of  communities  has  come  into  being, 
Progress  can  knock  at  the  door  with  some  chance 
of  being  admitted.  In  general,  it  is  enough  for  our 
present  purpose  to  have  shown  that  some  modicum 
of  progress  has  occurred  within  the  species  Man; 
and  that  some  of  the  characteristics  which  most 
saliently  mark  him  off  from  other  organisms — his 
powers  of  generalization  and  his  self-consciousness 
— are  in  themselves  germs,  potentialities  of  great 
progress  in  the  future,  because  through  them  blind 
biological  progress  can  become  economical,  foresee- 
ing, and  conscious  of  herself. 

There  remains  for  me  only  one  task — to  investi- 
gate more  closely  the  relation  of  that  fact  of  evolu- 
tionary direction  which  we  have  called  biological 
progress,  to  our  ideas  of  value.  What  we  have 
found  is  that  there  exists  a  certain  general  direction 
of  movement  in  the  evolution  of  living  things;  to- 
wards the  increase  of  certain  of  their  properties. 
But  when  we  make  a  further  analysis,  we  fmd  that 
movement  in  this  direction  is  movement  towards  a 
realization  of  the  things  judged  by  the  human  mind 
to  have  value.  It  is  movement  towards  an  increase 
of  power,  of  knowledge,  of  purpose,  of  emotion,  of 
harmony,  of  independence.  Increases  in  these  facul- 
ties combine,  once  a  certain  stage  in  mental  develop- 


PROGRESS,   BIOLOGICAL   AND  OTHER  59 

ment  is  reached,  to  mean  the  embracing  of  ever 
larger  syntheses  by  the  organism  possessing  them — 
practical  syntheses,  as  in  business,  or  exploration,  or 
administration;  intellectual,  as  in  philosophy  or  in 
the  establishment  of  scientific  laws;  emotional,  as  in 
love  or  in  the  passion  for  nature;  artistic,  as  in  a 
symphony  or  great  drama.  These  capabilities  are 
greater  in  man  than  in  the  higher  animals,  in  the 
higher  animals  than  in  the  lower,  more  and  more 
windows  being  closed  and  powers  pruned  away  as 
we  descend  the  scale. 

It  is  immaterial  whether  the  human  mind  comes 
to  have  these  values  because  they  make  for  progress 
in  evolution,  or  whether  things  which  make  for  evo- 
lutionary progress  become  significant  because  they 
happen  to  be  considered  as  valuable  by  human  mind, 
for  both  are  in  their  degree  true.  There  is  an  inter- 
relation which  cannot  be  disentangled,  for  it  is  based 
on  the  fundamental  uniformity  and  unity  of  the 
cosmos.  What  is  important  is  that  the  human  idea 
of  value  fmds  its  external  counterpart  in  an  actual 
historical  direction  in  phenomena,  and  that  each  be- 
comes more  important  because  of  the  relationship. 

Much  of  what  I  have  written  will  appear  obvious. 
But  if  it  has  been  obvious,  it  v/ill  be  because  I  have 
here  attempted  to  focus  attention  on  some  of  the 
corollaries  of  a  single  fundamental  truth — so  obvious 
that  it  often  escapes  notice,  but  so  fundamental  that 
its  results  cannot  but  fail  to  obtrude  themselves 


60  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

upon  us.  I  mean  the  unity  of  phenomena — not 
merely  the  unity  of  life,  put  on  a  firm  footing  for  all 
time  by  Darwin,  though  that  is  for  my  purpose  the 
most  important,  but  the  unity  of  living  and  non- 
living, demanding  a  monistic  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse. For  the  present,  the  stellar  host  (possibly, 
as  recent  astronomy  seems  to  assert,  assembled  not 
in  one  system  but  in  a  multiplicity  of  universes, 
floating  through  space  like  a  shoal  of  jelly-fishes  in 
a  Mediterranean  bay) — the  stars  seem  alien  from 
our  life,  alien  or  at  best  neutral.  All  that  links  us 
to  them  is  that  we  are  built  of  the  same  stuff,  the 
same  elements. 

But  the  last  half-century  has  at  least  enlarged  our 
view  so  that  we  can  perceive  that  we,  as  living 
things,  are  not  alien  to  the  rest  of  life — that  we 
march  in  the  same  direction,  and  that  our  hostility 
to  and  struggles  with  other  organisms  are  in  part 
but  the  continuation  of  the  old  struggle,  in  part  the 
expression  of  the  fact  that  we  have  acquired  new 
methods  for  dealing  with  the  problems  of  existence. 

The  origin  of  life  itself,  and  its  movement  in  time 
— both  these  are  found  to  face  in  the  same  direction 
as  ourselves.  St.  Paul  wrote  that  all  things  work 
together  for  good.  That  is  an  exaggeration:  but 
they  work  together  so  that  the  average  level  of  the 
good  is  raised,  the  potentialities  of  life  are  bettered. 
In  every  time  and  every  country,  men  have  obscurely 
felt  that,  although  so  much  of  the  world,  taken 
singly,  was  evil,  yet  the  clash  of  thing  with  thing. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  61 

process  with  process,  the  working  of  the  whole,  some- 
how led  to  good. 

This  feeling  is  what  I  believe  is  clarified  and  put 
on  a  firm  intellectual  footing  by  biology.  The  prob- 
lems of  evil,  of  pain,  of  strife,  of  death,  of  insuffi- 
ciency and  imperfection — all  these  and  a  host  of 
others  remain  to  perplex  and  burden  us.  But  the 
fact  of  progress  emerging  from  pain  and  battle  and 
imperfection — this  is  an  intellectual  prop  which  can 
support  the  distressed  and  questioning  mind,  and 
be  incorporated  into  the  common  theology  of  the 
future. 

Dean  Inge,  in  his  Romanes  Lectures, ^^  quotes 
Disraeli's  caustic  words,  "The  European  talks  of 
progress  because  by  the  aid  of  a  few  scientific  dis- 
coveries he  has  established  a  society  which  has  mis- 
taken comfort  for  civilization,"  and  quotes  them  with 
approval.  He  bitterly  criticizes  what  we  may  sum 
up  as  Millenarianism  (although  this  after  all  is  but 
a  crude  and  popular  aspiration  after  what  the  Chris- 
tian would  call  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth). 
And,  after  exalting  Hope  as  a  virtue,  closes  with  the 
somewhat  satirical  statement,  "It  is  safe  to  predict 
that  we  shall  go  on  hoping." 

He  has  been  so  concerned  to  attack  the  dogma  of 
inherent  and  inevitable  progress  in  human  affairs 
that  he  has  denied  the  fact  of  progress — whether  in- 
evitable we  know  not,  but  indubitable  and  actual 
— in  biological  evolution:  and  in  so  doing  he  has 

17  Inge,  '20. 


62  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

cut  off  himself  and  his  adherents  from  one  of  the 
ways  in  which  that  greatest  need  of  man  which  we 
spoke  of  at  the  outset  can  be  satisfied,  from  by 
far  the  greatest  manifestation  in  external  things 
of  ''something,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness/' 

One  word  more,  and  I  have  done.  There  remains 
in  some  ways  the  hardest  problem  of  all.  The 
greatest  experiences  of  human  life,  those  in  which 
the  mind  appears  to  touch  the  Absolute  and  the 
Infinite — what  of  their  relation  to  this  notion  of 
progress?  They  are  realized  in  many  forms — in 
love,  in  intellectual  discovery,  in  art,  in  religion; 
but  the  salient  fact  about  all  is  that  they  are  felt 
as  of  intensest  value,  and  that  they  seem  to  leave 
no  more  to  be  desired.  Doubtless  when  we  say  that 
at  such  moment  we  touch  the  Infinite  or  the  Absolute 
we  mean  only  that  we  touch  what  is  infinite  and  ab- 
solute in  comparison  with  our  ordinary  selves. 
None  the  less,  the  sense  of  finality  and  utter  reality 
attendant  on  them  is  difficult  to  bring  into  line  with 
our  idea  of  progress. 

"I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night 
Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light. 
All  calm,  as  it  was  bright." 

The  Dean  too  has  felt  this  so  strongly  that  he  has 
made  it  the  keystone  of  his  argument.  As  he 
says,  "Spiritual  progress  must  be  within  the  sphere 
of  a  reality  which  is  not  itself  progressing,  or  for 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  63 

which  in  Milton's  grand  words  'progresses  the  date- 
less and  irrevoluble  circle  of  its  own  perfection,  join- 
ing inseparable  hands  with  joy  and  bliss  in  over- 
measure  for  ever/  " 

I  would  only  suggest  that  for  many  to  attain  to 
such  experiences,  which  in  truth  seem  to  constitute 
the  highest  satisfaction  at  present  conceivable  for 
men  on  earth,  it  is  necessary  to  organize  the  com- 
munity and  to  plan  out  life  in  such  a  way  that  hu- 
man beings,  released  from  the  unnecessary  burdens 
of  hunger,  poverty,  and  strife,  are  not  only  free  but 
helped  and  urged  to  attain  to  such  Delectable  Moun- 
tains. Spiritual  progress  is  our  one  ultimate  aim; 
it  may  be  towards  the  dateless  and  irrevoluble;  but 
it  is  inevitably  dependent  upon  progress  intellectual, 
moral,  and  physical — progress  in  this  changing,  re- 
volving world  of  dated  events. 

^   BIBLICM3RAPHY 

(It  was  felt  that  the  citation  of  a  few  works  bearing 
upon  the  subject-matter  of  the  essays  might  help  those 
desirous  of  pursuing  the  subject  further;  but  to  more  than 
this  the  lists  make  no  claim.) 

Babcock    and   Clausen,    '18.    "Genetics   in    Relation   to 

Agriculture."     New  York,    1918. 
Bateson,  72.     "Science."     (N.S.)   1922. 
Bergson,  H.,  Ml.     "Creative  Evolution."    London,  1911. 
Bury,  J.  B.,  '20.    'The  Idea  of  Progress."    London,  1920. 


64  ESSAYS  OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

Carr-Saunders,  A.  M.,  '11.  "The  Population  Problem." 
Oxford,  1922. 

Castle,  et  al,  '12.  "Genetics  and  Eugenics."  Chicago, 
1912. 

Conklin,  E.  G.  "Heredity  and  Environment  in  the  De- 
velopment of  Man."     London,  1922. 

Darwin,  C.     "The  Origin  of  Species." 

"The  Descent  of  Man." 

Dendy,  T4.  "Outlines  of  Evolutionary  Biology."  Lon- 
don, 1914. 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  '19.  "Development  and  Purpose." 
London,  1919. 

Huxley,  J.  S.,  '12.  "The  Individual  in  the  Animal  King- 
dom."   Cambridge,  1912. 

T.  H.     "Evolution  and  Ethics."    Collected  Essays, 

vol.  ix.  London,  1906. 

Inge,  W.  R.,  '20.  "The  Idea  of  Progress."  Romanes 
Lectures.     Oxford,  1920. 

James,  W.,  '02.  "Varieties  of  Religious  Experience." 
London,  1902. 

Kohler,  W.,  '21.  'Intelligenzprufungen  an  Menschen- 
affen."     Berlin,  1921. 

Lloyd  Morgan,  C,  '20.  "Animal  Behaviour."  London, 
1920. 

Loeb,  J.,  '18.  "Forced  Movements,  Tropisms,  and  Ani- 
mal Conduct."     Philadelphia,  1918. 

Lull,  '17.     "Organic  Evolution."    New  York,  1917. 

M'Dougall,  W.,  '11.    "Body  and  Mind."    London,  1911. 

Osborn,  H.  P.,  '10.  "The  Age  of  Mammals."  New 
York,  1910. 

Shipley  and  MacBride,  '20.  "Zoology."  Cambridge, 
1920. 


PROGRESS,    BIOLOGICAL   AND   OTHER  65 

Washburn,  M.  R,  '13.  "The  Animal  Mind."  New 
York,  1913. 

Weismann,  A.,  '04.  "The  Evolution  Theory."  2  vols. 
London,  1904. 

Whetham,  W.  C.  D.,  '12.  "Heredity  and  Society."  Lon- 
don, 1912. 

Woodward,  A.  S.,  '98.  "Outlines  of  Vertebrate  Paleon- 
tology."   Cambridge,  1898. 


II 

BIOLOGY  AND  SOCIOLOGY 


PROGRESS 

The  Crab  to  Cancer  junior  gave  advice: 
"Know  what  you  want,  my  son,  and  then  proceed 
Directly  sideways.    God  has  thus  decreed — 

Progress  is  lateral;  let  that  suffice." 

Darwinian  Tapeworms  on  the  other  hand 
Agree  that  Progress  is  a  loss  of  brain, 
And  all  that  makes  it  hard  for  worms  to  attain 

The  true  Nirvana — peptic,  pure,  and  grand. 

Man  too  enjoys  to  omphaloscopize. 

Himself  as  Navel  of  the  Universe 

Oft  rivets  him — until  he  asks  his  Nurse, 
Old  Nature,  for  the  truth;  and  she  replies: 
"Look  back,  and  find  support;  you  march  with  Life's  main  stream. 
Look  on— be  proud;  her  future  lies  within  your  dream." 

London,  Feb.  1923. 


BIOLOGY  AND   SOCIOLOGY 

"Come  out  into  the  light  of  things; 
Let  Nature  be  your  teacher." 

— W.  Wordsworth. 

"In  matters  that  really  interest  him,  man  cannot  support  the 
suspense  of  judgment  which  science  so  often  has  to  enjoin.  He 
is  too  anxious  to  feel  certain  to  have  time  to  know.  So  that  we 
see  of  the  sciences,  mathematics  appearing  first,  then  astronomy, 
then  physics,  then  chemistry,  then  biology,  then  psychology,  then 
sociology — but  always  the  new  field  was  grudged  to  the  new 
method,  and  we  still  have  the  denial  to  sociology  of  the  name 
of  science." — W.  Trotter,  Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and 
War. 

THERE  are  many  facile  comparisons  to  be 
drawn  between  the  facts  of  biology  and  of 
sociology.  The  most  obvious  is  that  between 
a  whole  civilized  community  and  one  of  the  higher 
animals.  Shakespeare  employed  an  age-old  fable 
in  Menenius  Agrippa's  Tale  of  the  Belly  and  the 
Members  in  Coriolanus.  With  Darwin,  and  the 
establishment  of  evolutionary  biology  on  a  sound 
footing,  matters  took  a  new  turn.  Man  was  now 
seen  to  be  connected  with  the  rest  of  life  not  merely 
by  analogies  of  his  own  mind's  weaving,  but  by  the 
living  bonds  of  genetic  descent;  and  it  was  at  once 
perceived  that  a  more  rigid  force  than  had  hitherto 
been  suspected  might  inhere  in  the  comparisons  be- 

69 


70  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

tween  State  and  Organism.  For,  as  Spencer  argued, 
was  not  the  State  in  a  true  sense  an  organism — a 
single  biological  unit  composed  of  individual  human 
beings  just  as  a  metazoan  animal  was  a  single  bio- 
logical unit  composed,  in  the  first  instance,  of  in- 
dividual cells?  Further,  the  investigation  of  the 
evolutionary  process  seemed  to  reveal  certain  general 
laws  of  its  march:  beings  of  the  same  original  con- 
stitution, exposed  to  the  environmental  forces  of  the 
same  planet,  had  reacted  in  similar  ways,  developing 
along  parallel  lines,  and  arriving  at  similar  types  of 
organization  as  end-result.  Thus  it  might  reason- 
ably be  supposed  that  we  should  find  the  same  gen- 
eral organization  and  mode  of  development  in  one 
type  of  organism  as  in  another,  in  human  society 
as  in  a  vertebrate. 

On  these  bases,  Spencer  and  his  followers  drew 
elaborate  comparisons  of  the  two,  and  apparently 
believed  that  they  were  reaching  the  same  degree 
of  accuracy  as  that  found  in  comparative  anatomy 
when  they  compared  the  circulatory  system  of  a 
mammal  with  the  transport  facilities  of  a  State,  or 
drew  parallels  between  the  brain  and  the  cabinet. 

It  was  speedily  seen,  however,  that  such  general- 
izations were  so  broad  and  vague  as  not  to  be  of 
much  service:  that  the  resemblances  were  in  fact 
often  no  more  than  symbolical  or  metaphorical,  in- 
stead of  being  based  upon  detailed  similarity  of 
constitution  or  of  evolutionary  development.     With 


BIOLOGY    AND    SOCIOLOGY  71 

this,  evolutionary  theorizing  on  sociological  matters 
fell  somewhat  into  disrepute.  The  earlier  jubilant 
certainty  gave  place  to  later  doubt;  and  the  half- 
century  whose  beginnings  had  roused  Haeckel  and 
Herbert  Spencer  to  their  imaginative  flights  closed 
suitably  enough  with  that  remarkable  document, 
T.  H.  Huxley's  Romanes  Lecture,  in  which  the  great- 
est protagonist  of  Darwinism  confesses  to  seeing  be- 
tween man  and  the  rest  of  the  cosmic  process,  in 
spite  of  man's  genesis  from  that  same  cosmic  process, 
an  insuperable  and  essential  opposition,  a  difference 
of  aim  or  direction  which  had  turned  the  original 
bridge  into  a  barrier.^ 

As  a  result,  not  only  did  the  particular  comparison 
between  society  and  an  organism  fall  into  disrepute, 
but  also  all  attempts  to  draw  far-reaching  conclusions 
from  biology  to  human  affairs. 

But  the  original  contention  still  remains,  and  is 
logically  unassailable.  Man  is  an  organism  de- 
scended from  lower  organisms;  his  communities  are 
composed  of  units  bound  together  for  mutual  good 
in  a  division  of  labour  in  the  same  way  as  are  the 
cells  of  a  metazoan :  he  can  no  more  escape  the  effects 
of  his  terrestrial  environment  than  can  other  organ- 
isms. There  is  therefore  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
processes  of  evolution  in  man  and  man's  societies  on 
the  one  hand,  and  in  lower  organisms  on  the  other, 

1  For  a  remarkable  critical  history  of  biological  thought  during 
this  period,  see  Radl,  '09. 


72  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

must  have  something  important  and  indeed  funda- 
mental in  common,  something  which  if  we  could  but 
unravel  would  help  us  in  the  study  of  both. 

The  correlation  of  biology  with  sociology  is  im- 
portant not  only  in  itself,  but  also  as  part  of  a  moie 
general  correlation  of  all  the  sciences.  The  correla- 
tion of  the  sciences  is  of  particular  importance  to-day 
for  a  double  set  of  reasons.  The  rise  of  evolution- 
ary biology  and  of  modern  psychology  have  not 
only  changed  our  outlook  on  specially  human  prob- 
lems, but  have  altered  the  whole  balance,  if  I  may 
so  put  it,  of  science.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
basic  studies  of  physics  and  chemistry  seemed  not 
only  basic  but  somehow  more  essentially  scientific 
than  the  sciences  dealing  with  life.  Distinctions 
were  drawn  between  the  experimental  and  the  obser- 
vational sciences — often  half-consciously  implying  a 
distinction  between  accurate,  scientific,  self-respecting 
sciences  and  blundering,  hit-or-miss,  tolerated  bodies 
of  knowledge.  Biological  phenomena  are  now,  how- 
ever, seen  to  be  every  whit  as  susceptible  of  accurate 
and  experimental  analysis;  and  indeed  to  present  so 
many  problems  to  the  physicist  and  chemist  that  in 
fifty  years  or  so,  I  venture  to  prophesy,  the  wise 
virgins  in  those  basic  sciences  will  be  those  who  have 
laid  in  a  store  of  biological  oil. 

But  the  main  point  is  this — the  study  of  evolu- 
tion, of  animal  behaviour  and  of  human  psychology 
makes  it  clear  that  in  the  higher  forms  of  animals  at 
least  we  are  dealing  with  a  category  not  touched  on 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  73 

at  all  by  the  physicist  and  chemist — the  category  of 
mind  and  mental  process.  Sir  Charles  Sherrington, 
with  admirable  lucidity,  drew  for  us,  in  his  recent 
address  to  the  British  Association,  the  problem  of 
the  relation  between  mind  and  matter  as  it  presents 
itself  to  the  biologist. 

The  great  change  that  has  come  over  science  in 
the  last  half  century,  or  so  it  seems  to  me,  is  the 
recognition  that  mind  is  not  to  be  explained  away  as 
a  mere  epiphenomenon,  but  is  to  be  studied  as  a 
phenomenon.  From  this  point  of  view,  biology  will 
always  be  the  connecting  link  between  physico- 
chemical  science  on  the  one  hand,  and  psychology 
on  the  other.  There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  and 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  life,  which  we  know  to  be 
composed  of  the  same  material  elements  and  to  work 
by  the  same  energy  as  non-living  matter,  actually 
arose  from  it  during  the  evolution  of  this  planet. 
There  is,  in  the  behaviour  of  the  lower  organisms, 
nothing  which  by  itself  would  make  us  postulate 
mind:  but  in  the  higher  insects,  molluscs,  and  verte- 
brates, the  last  in  particular,  mental  process  is  not 
only  clearly  present,  but  clearly  of  great  biological 
importance;  and  finally  the  mind  of  man,  according 
to  innumerable  converging  lines  of  evidence,  has 
evolved  from  the  mind  of  some  non-human  mammal. 

The  principle  of  continuity  makes  us  postulate 
that  this  new  category  of  phenomena  has  not  sprung 
up  during  the  course  of  evolution  absolutely  de  7iovo, 
but  that  it  is  in  some  sense  universally  present  in 


74  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

all  phenomena.  It  is  merely  that  we  have  not  yet 
found  a  method  for  the  direct  detection  of  mental 
processes  as  we  have,  say,  for  electrical  processes; 
but  something  of  the  same  general  nature,  the  same 
category  as  mind  must,  if  we  wish  to  preserve  our 
scientific  sanity,  our  belief  in  the  orderliness  of  the 
world,  be  present  in  lower  organisms  and  in  the  life- 
less matter  from  which  they  originally  sprang. 

In  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge,  the  study 
of  physics  and  chemistry  can  be  pursued  without 
any  reference  to  mental  processes.  But  the  study 
of  biology  cannot:  and  that  is  one  reason  why  the 
centre  of  gravity  of  science  as  a  whole  is  shifting — ■ 
it  is  shifting  for  exactly  the  same  reason  that  the 
centre  of  gravity  of  a  house  shifts  during  its  con- 
struction— because  the  foundations  have  to  be  built 
first. 

Our  second  reason  is  as  follows.  Biology  is  once 
more  the  link  between  root  and  flower,  between 
physics  and  chemistry  and  human  affairs,  in  regard 
to  evolution.  I  say  evolution :  it  would  be  better  to 
broaden  the  idea  by  saying  the  directional  processes 
to  be  seen  in  the  universe.  So  far  as  a  main  direc- 
tion is  to  be  observed  in  physics  and  chemistry,  it  is, 
as  all  authorities  are  agreed,  towards  the  degradation 
of  energy  and  a  final  state  in  which  not  only  life  but 
all  activity  whatsoever  will  be  reduced  to  nothing, 
all  the  waters  of  energy  run  down  into  a  single  dead 
level  of  moveless  ocean.  Biology,  on  the  other 
hand,  presents  us  with  the  spectacle  of  an  evolution 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  75 

in  which  the  main  direction  is  the  raising  of  the  max- 
imum level  of  certain  qualities  of  living  beings,  such 
as  efficiency  of  organs,  co-ordination,  size,  accuracy 
and  range  of  senses,  capacity  for  knowledge,  memory 
and  educability,  emotional  intensity, — qualities  which 
in  one  way  or  another  lead  to  a  more  efficient 
control  by  the  organism  over  the  external  world,  and 
to  its  greater  independence. 

A  direction  towards  more  mind  is  visible;  and  this 
development  of  greater  mental  powers  has  been  in 
all  the  later  stages  the  chief  instrument  of  acquiring 
control  and  independence.  More  and  more  of  mat- 
ter is  embodied  in  living  organisms,  more  and  more 
becomes  subservient  to  life. 

Thus,  while  in  physics  and  chemistry  we  see  a 
tendency  towards  the  extinction  of  life  and  activity, 
in  biology  we  see  a  tendency  towards  more  life  and 
more  activity;  and  this  latter  tendency  is  accom- 
panied and  largely  made  possible  by  the  evolution 
of  greater  intensity  of  mental  process — of  something, 
that  is  to  say,  of  which  we  cannot  as  yet  take  account 
in  physics  and  chemistry. 

The  biologist  may  well  ask  himself  the  question 
— "Is  it  not  possible  that  this  evolving  mind,  of 
whose  achievements  on  its  new  level  in  man  we  are 
only  seeing  the  beginning,  may  continue  to  find  more 
and  more  ways  of  subordinating  the  inorganic  to 
itself,  and  that  it  may  eventually  retard  or  even 
prevent  the  attainment  of  this  complete  degradation 
of  energy  prophesied  by  physico-chemical  science? 


76  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

Is  it  not  possible  that  this  great  generalization  only 
applies  to  phenomena  in  their  purely  material  aspect, 
and  that  when  we  learn  to  detect  and  measure  the 
mental  aspects  of  phenomena  we  may  find  reason 
to  modify  the  universal  applicability  of  this  law  of 
degradation?"  We  do  not  know  the  answer  to  that 
question:  but  it  is  clearly  a  legitimate  and  useful 
question  to  ask.  In  any  event,  we  constatate  two 
chief  directions  in  the  universe;  that  seen  in  biology 
is  in  many  ways  opposed  to  that  seen  in  physics  and 
chemistry;  and  both  must  be  taken  into  account. 

I  have  spent,  I  fear,  a  great  deal  of  time  on  what 
will  appear  to  many  as  very  irrelevant  prolegomena. 
But  the  complete  breakdown  of  the  older  views  about 
nature  and  man,  of  the  philosophies  and  theologies 
based  not  on  observation  but  on  an  authority'which 
is  no  authority,  on  unverifiable  speculation,  on  su- 
perstition, and  on  what  we  would  like  to  be  so  rather 
than  on  what  happens  to  be  so — the  breakdown  of 
all  the  commonly  accepted  basis  for  man's  view  of 
himself  and  the  universe,  has  made  it  necessary  to 
go  back  to  fundamentals  if  we  are  to  see  where  we 
stand.  Secondly,  the  progress  of  the  biological  and 
psychological  sciences,  as  I  have  already  pointed 
out,  has  considerably  altered  the  outlook  of  those 
who  pin  their  faith  to  the  newer  or  scientific  view 
of  nature,  the  view  which  attempts  constantly  to 
refer  speculations  to  reality,  and  to  build  on  founda- 
tions which  have  been  tested  by  experiment. 

The  orthodox  evolutionary  view  was  that  phe- 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  77 

nomena  received  in  some  degree  an  explanation  if 
their  origin  from  simpler  phenomena  could  be  dem- 
onstrated. As  a  matter  of  fact,  reflection  makes  it 
clear  that  such  an  explanation  is  never  complete.  It 
is  a  very  incomplete  explanation  of  the  properties 
of  water  to  discover  that  it  is  composed  of  oxygen 
and  hydrogen;  or  of  those  of  humanity  to  discover 
that  it  is  derived  from  lower  forms  of  life.  A  pre- 
cisely similar  mistake  is  made  by  most  psycho- 
analysts, who  consider  that  an  "explanation"  of 
adult  psychology  is  given  by  tracing  in  it  effects  of 
the  events  of  childhood.  In  all  such  cases  it  is  true 
that  analysis  is  helped,  but  we  are  by  no  means 
exempted  from  further  study  of  the  later  (and  more 
complex)  phenomena  in  and  for  themselves.  Just 
as  adult  psychology  is  qualitatively  different  in  va- 
rious respects  from  childish  psychology,  so  is  man 
qualitatively  different  from  lower  organisms.  Very 
few  attempts  have  been  made  to  carry  over  concep- 
tions derived  from  sociology  into  biology.^  But  the 
converse,  as  we  have  seen,  has  often  been  true,  and 
numerous  writers — largely  because  purely  biological 
are  simpler  than  human  phenomena — have  been 
obsessed  with  the  idea  that  the  study  of  biology  as 
such  will  teach  us  principles  which  can  be  applied 
directly  and  wholesale  to  human  problems. 
';-.What  we  have  just  been  saying  shows  us  the  cor- 
rect path.     Through  psychology  and  biology,  soci- 

2  Morley   Roberts   is   a   recent   exception.    See   his   interesting 
book,  Warfare  in  the  Human  Body. 


78  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ology  can  become  attached  to  the  general  body  cf 
science;  and  in  so  doing  it  can  both  receive  and  give. 
Since  man  is  but  a  single  species  of  organism,  and, 
biologically  speaking,  a  very  young  one;  since  more- 
over he  presents  a  peculiar  type  of  organization,  it  is 
clear  that  the  broad  principles  underlying  physiology 
and  evolution  can  best  be  studied  on  other  organ- 
isms and  later  applied  to  man.  On  the  other  hand, 
man  is  the  highest  existing  organism;  thus  a  study 
of  the  causes  to  which  he  owes  his  pre-eminence  will 
be  important  as  adding  to  and  crowning  the  prin- 
ciples derived  from  non-human  biology.  Further- 
more, not  only  are  man's  mental  powers  on  a  different 
level  from  those  of  other  animals,  but  psychology 
can  at  present  make  by  far  its  greatest  contributions 
by  a  study  of  human  mind,  so  that  the  psychological 
side  of  biology  will  for  the  present  derive  its  chief 
information  from  man. 

Our  first  affair,  therefore,  is  to  see  in  what  im- 
portant respects  man  is  qualitatively  unlike  the  rest 
of  the  organic  world;  then  to  investigate  what  gen- 
eral rules  or  principles  apply  equally  to  him  and  to 
the  others;  and  finally  to  see  what  corrections,  so  to 
speak,  must  be  made  before  these  principles  can  be 
applied  to  the  one  or  to  the  other. 

The  qualitative  difference  between  man  and  other 
organisms  is  a  cardinal  fact  with  orthodox  biology 
has  tended  to  slur  over  or  to  neglect,  whereas  philos- 
ophy has  too  often  tried  to  magnify  it  unduly  so  as 
to  make  man   frankly   incommensurable   with   his 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  79 

lower  relatives,  a  creature  not  only  unique  but  dis- 
parate. 

Man  is  obviously  and  undoubtedly  an  organism 
of  the  same  general  nature  as  other  organisms.  He 
possesses  the  same  general  system  of  organs,  work- 
ing in  the  same  way  as  a  dog,  a  horse,  a  bird,  a 
crocodile,  or  a  frog;  he  passes  through  the  same  type 
of  developmental  cycle;  he  is  built  on  the  same  de- 
tailed plan  as  other  mammals;  and  numerous  in- 
dications betray  his  descent  from  a  particular  branch 
of  the  mammalian  stock. 

But  in  his  mode  of  life  and  type  of  social  organ- 
ization he  is  unique.  All  detailed  comparisons  be- 
tween the  communities  of  man  and  those  of  bees  and 
ants  are  as  unprofitable  in  the  working-out  as  they 
are  easy  in  the  making.  It  is  futile  to  direct  the 
sluggard  or  any  other  human  being  to  the  ant,  since 
the  whole  physical  and  psychical  construction  of 
ants  is  different  from  that  of  man,  the  whole  organ- 
ization of  their  communities  from  that  of  his. 

His  mode  of  life  is  unique  because  his  psycho- 
neural  mechanism  is  built  on  a  new  plan,  new  modes 
of  connection  between  parts  of  the  brain  being  as- 
sociated with  new  possibilities  of  mind.  Let  us 
briefly  run  over  the  biologically  most  important 
points  in  which  he  differs  from  the  lower  organisms. 

In  the  first  place,  he  is  capable  of  speech,  and 
possesses  a  true  language — not  a  mere  repertory  of 
sounds  or  signs  associated  with  different  states  of 
mind,  as  in  some  higher  organisms,  but  a  language 


80  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

comprising  special  symbols  for  particular  external 
objects,  and  thus  making  it  possible  to  have  a  much 
more  detailed  knowledge  and  classification  of  the 
outer  world.  In  the  second  place,  he  can  frame  ab- 
stract ideas  or  concepts,  and  is  thus  enabled  to 
extract  the  general  kernel  from  the  husk  of  innumer- 
able separate  and  different  particulars.  As  a  result 
of  these  two  faculties,  he  possesses  what  we  may  call 
a  new,  accessory  form  of  inheritance.  True  biolog- 
ical inheritance  takes  place  by  means  of  the  repro- 
ductive cells.  In  some  birds  and  mammals,  the 
behaviour  of  the  young  is  modified  by  what  they 
learn  from  their  parents,  so  that  they  profit  by  the 
experience  of  their  elders;  however,  this  profiting  by 
experience  is  not  cumulative,  but  must  be  repeated 
afresh  in  each  generation.  In  man,  on  the  other 
hand,  speech  and  writing  make  it  possible  to  con- 
struct a  continuous  tradition,  by  means  of  which  ex- 
perience may  be  actually  accumulated  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  There  are  thus  two  forms  of 
inheritance  in  man,  two  hereditary  streams — biolog- 
ical inheritance,  by  means  of  germ-cells  or  detached 
portions  of  the  organism,  in  which  favourable 
mutations  may  be  accumulated  by  selection,  and 
"experience-inheritance,"  by  means  of  tradition,  in 
which  useful  experience  may  be  accumulated  by  the 
activity  of  mind.  By  means  of  tradition-inheritance, 
man  is  virtually  enabled  to  "inherit  acquired  char- 
acters"; thus  the  environment  in  which  the  latter 
stages  of  his  development  are  passed  through,  and 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  81 

consequently  his  adult  self,  the  end-product  of  that 
development,  can  be  altered  far  more  rapidly  than 
in  any  other  organism.  Finally,  it  is  possible,  as  is 
being  increasingly  realized,  thus  to  accumulate  expe- 
rience relating  to  the  alteration  of  biological  inher- 
itance, and  so  eventually  to  substitute  conscious 
purpose  for  blind  natural  selection  in  man's  future 
evolution. 

Next  point:  by  means  of  speech,  tradition,  and 
invention,  man  has  been  enabled  to  extend  his  bio- 
logical environment — in  other  words,  that  part  of  the 
cosmos  with  which  he  stands  in  relation — till  it  has 
reached  an  enormously  greater  size  than  that  of  any 
other  organism.  He  is  learning  ever  more  facts  about 
the  celestial  bodies,  studying  stars  that  are  at  an  in- 
conceivable distance  from  him.  He  is  able  to  travel 
at  will  to  all  parts  of  the  globe.  He  can  penetrate 
by  means  of  tradition  to  remote  periods  of  the  past : 
as  Mr.  Wells  has  forcibly  put  it,  a  modern  English- 
man can  know  more  of  the  world  in  the  Classical 
Epoch  than  could  the  most  learned  Greek  or  Roman. 
And  even  when  he  can  no  more  get  into  contact  with 
ideas,  he  can  still  unravel  facts:  flint  implements 
help  him  to  the  history  of  man,  fossils  to  that  of  life, 
rocks  to  that  of  the  globe,  stars  to  that  of  the  solar 
system.  In  time,  as  well  as  in  space,  his  environ- 
ment enlarges  to  a  size  that  is  for  practical  purposes 
infinite,  whereas  no  other  organism  can  penetrate  be- 
yond its  own  memories,  or,  at  most,  do  more  than 
profit  by  those  of  the  generation  immediately  before 


82  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

it.  Professor  Keyser,^  in  a  suggestive  article,  has 
characterized  this  unique  attribute  of  man  by  calling 
him  "the  time-binder." 

Speech  and  reasoning,  with  all  their  consequences, 
have  only  been  rendered  possible  through  another 
important  qualitative  change  in  the  human  brain, 
which  in  its  turn  has  led  to  other  new  potentialities 
of  life  being  realized  in  man  and  in  man  alone — its 
flexibility. 

In  some  of  the  lowest  forms  of  life,  such  as  Para- 
mecium, there  are  but  one  or  two  possible  modes  of 
reaction — reactions  which  it  attempts  in  response  to 
any  one  of  the  myriad  changes  that  may  occur  in  the 
outer  world.  As  we  ascend  the  scale,  we  find  two 
chief  types  of  alterations:  in  the  first  place  an  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  hereditarily-given  modes  of 
reaction,  and  in  the  second  an  increased  power  of 
"learning,"  of  altering  behaviour  in  adjustment  to 
experience.  In  the  insects,  the  first  is  chiefly  in  evi- 
dence. Although  many  insects  undoubtedly  can 
profit  by  experience  to  a  limited  degree,  yet  most  of 
their  behaviour  is  instinctive,  in  the  sense  that  it 
unrolls  itself  automatically  and  efficiently  in  the  ab- 
sence of  previous  experience  or  of  any  possible 
instruction.  In  the  vertebrates,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  see  as  we  pass  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  groups 
a  definite,  steady  increase  in  the  power  of  learning 
by  experience,  from  the  fish  that  takes  weeks  to  as- 
sociate a  given  colour  with  a  given  event  such  as 

^Science,  September  1921. 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  83 

feeding-time,  to  the  dog  or  monkey  capable  of  learn- 
ing elaborate  tricks  after  a  couple  of  trials.  But 
even  in  the  most  "intelligent"  of  birds  or  mammals, 
the  power  of  image-formation  is  very  probably  ab- 
sent,"* and  the  power  of  concept-formation,  of  gener- 
alizing, certainly  so.  This  fact  (quite  apart  from 
the  absence  of  tradition,  although  this  too  operates 
in  the  same  direction)  means  that  the  associations 
of  animals  can  only  be  arbitrary  and  individual:  a 
rook  in  one  country  (to  choose  a  somewhat  far- 
fetched example)  may  happen  to  associate  danger 
with  fire-arms,  one  in  another  with  bows  and  arrows. 
Life,  for  the  animals,  is  a  cinema,  different  for  each 
individual,  in  which  one  event  may  be  associated 
with  another  in  the  most  diverse  and  haphazard 
ways.  With  the  advent  of  the  human  type  of  brain, 
however,  experience  can  be  sorted  out  and  properly 
docketed;  the  mere  cinematographic  record  is  con- 
verted into  a  drama  full  of  significance,  the  diary 
into  a  card-index.  By  this  means,  and  by  tradition, 
it  is  possible  for  man  to  obtain  a  much  more  ac- 
curate and  more  complete  grasp  of  the  relationships 
of  the  objects  that  compose  the  outer  world  than  is 
possible  for  any  other  animal.  Through  knowledge, 
as  ever,  comes  power:  and  as  a  result,  man  has  been 
enabled  to  invent  tools  and  machinery,  and  so  to 
enlarge  enormously  his  control  over  his  environ- 
ment. Just  as  his  "range,"  in  the  zoogeographical 
sense,  is  extended  to  an  unprecedented  degree  both  in 

*See  Thorndike,  'II. 


84  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

space  and  time,  so  tools  represent,  biologically 
speaking,  an  extension  of  himself  as  an  operator. 
While  man  is  using  a  tool,  he  and  the  tool  together 
constitute  but  a  single  unit  in  the  struggle  fo'  exist- 
ence. As  various  writers  have  put  it,  tools  and 
machines  are  temporary  organs  of  man,  which  have 
the  additional  merit  of  being  replaceable  if  lost  or 
damaged. 

But  this  is  not  all :  the  great  power  of  association 
possessed  by  man,  together  with  his  faculty  of  gen- 
eralization and  of  speech,  makes  it  possible  for  him 
to  learn  his  role  in  the  community,  instead  of  being 
born  with  it  as  are  the  bee  and  the  ant.  Great  edu- 
cability  instead  of  differentiated  instinct,  infinite 
possibility,  at  the  expense  of  the  pains  of  learning, 
instead  of  an  effortless  but  limited  stock  of  inborn 
modes  of  behaviour — in  this  again  man  represents  a 
qualitatively  new  organic  type. 

By  this  means  he  can  escape  what  has  always  been 
a  necessity  with  lower  forms :  by  means  of  education 
and  machinery  he  can  play  a  specialized  part  in  the 
community  life,  and  so  build  up  a  community  with 
a  high  degree  of  division  of  labour,  without  being 
born  specialized.  He  could  not  thus  learn  his  role  if 
he  were  not  educable,  nor  if  he  could  not  manufac- 
ture tools.  An  ant  or  a  duck  or  a  dog  possesses  ad- 
mirable tools  for  its  particular  job:  but  they  are 
living  parts  of  the  organism's  own  body.  A  worker 
ant  cannot  lay  down  its  serviceable  carpentering 
mandibles  and  become  a  soldier  by  picking  up  a 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  85 

large  and  warlike  pair: — once  a  worker,  always  a 
worker;  once  a  soldier,  always  a  soldier — that  is  the 
rule  for  ants,  but  not  for  men. 

The  efficiency  and  biological  success  of  communi- 
ties depends  on  the  degree  and  accuracy  of  the 
division  of  labour  and  co-ordination  between  the 
units  of  which  they  are  built  up.  This  is  true  of 
cell-communities  and  the  second-grade  individuals 
or  metazoa  or  multicellular  animals  and  plants  to 
which  they  give  rise,*^  and  also  of  the  communities 
of  metazoa  and  the  third-grade  individuals  to  which 
they  give  rise,  whether  the  members  of  such  com- 
munities of  higher  grade  are  physically  bound  to- 
gether, as  in  a  Hydroid  or  a  Portuguese  Man-o'- 
War,  or  united  only  by  mental  bonds,  as  are  the 
communities  of  ants  and  bees  and  termites.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  individuals  are  differentiated  struc- 
turally for  the  different  functions  which  they  have  to 
perform. 

This  is  not  so  in  human  species:  a  man  is  not 
born  cross-legged  to  be  a  tailor,  or  broad-thumbed 
to  be  a  miller,  or  big-armed  to  be  a  blacksmith. 
Even  in  the  hereditary  castes  of  India,  the  trade  or 
profession  is  determined  by  tradition,  and  not  by 
inborn  structural  adaptations. 

Still  another  consequence  flows  from  this  educa- 
bility,  this  flexible  and  elastic  mental  organization. 
A  man  can  pass  from  one  occupation  to  another. 

5  See  J.  S.  Huxley,  '12,  for  a  discussion  of  the  grades  of  bio- 
logical individuality. 


86  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

He  can  be  specialized  for  several,  or  combine  a  high 
degree  of  professional  skill  in  one  with  the  general- 
ized knowledge  of  an  amateur  in  another.  It  is  this 
obvious  but  fundamental  fact  which  is  at  the  bottom 
of  many  of  the  failures  to  apply  biological  ideas  to 
sociology. 

Another  human  distinction  is  the  increase  of  the 
part  played  by  environment  in  man  as  opposed  to 
animals  (in  determining  his  biologically  effective 
nature).  Environment  plays  not  merely  a  large 
part,  but  a  preponderating  one,  in  his  development 
after  the  first  year  or  so  of  his  life.  Tradition  pro- 
vides a  special  environment,  made  by  man  for  man's 
own  development;  and  men  brought  up  in  markedly 
different  traditions  arrive  at  different  end-results  just 
as  surely  and  obviously  as  do  men  of  markedly  dif- 
ferent hereditary  tendencies  arrive  at  different  end- 
results  even  though  exposed  to  similar  traditions. 
Traditions  are  infinitely  complex  things:  there  are 
world  traditions,  national  traditions  broad  and  nar- 
row, class  traditions  and  traditions  of  profession  and 
trade,  traditions  of  predilection,  of  art,  of  religion: 
and  men  may  be  exposed  in  their  development  to  the 
combined  influence  of  a  number  of  these.  But  the 
nett  result  of  the  diversity  of  tradition  is  an  extraor- 
dinary diversity  of  end-result.  ''Nihil  humanum 
alienum  a  me  puto" — Terence  could  only  say  this 
with  truth  in  the  sense  that  there  are  certain  funda- 
mental emotions  and  instincts  found  in  all  men,  and 
also  certain  aspects  of  environment  shared  by  all 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  87 

humanity — the  sun  and  moon,  earth,  water,  and  fire, 
space  and  time,  parents  and  society,  and  so  on  and 
so  forth. 

I  make  no  apologies  for  the  length  of  this  pre- 
liminary analysis,  since  it  is  precisely  by  the  neglect 
of  preliminary  analysis  that  most  attempts  to  corre- 
late biology  and  sociology  have  failed.  The  salient 
fact  emerges  that  with  man  there  has  been  a  radical 
change  in  evolutionary  method. 

As  space  is  limited,  I  am  here  only  proposing  to 
consider  three  of  the  chief  contributions  which  biol- 
ogy can  make  to  sociology — on  the  idea  of  progress, 
on  the  relation  between  individual  and  commu- 
nity, and  on  the  applicability  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  to  man. 

As  regards  the  idea  of  progress,  biology  can  make 
a  clear  and  unequivocal  contribution:  whereas  man 
is  biologically  so  young,  his  evolution  is  yet  so 
chaotic  and  divergently  directed,  that  it  is  very  hard 
to  arrive  at  definite  conclusions  from  the  study  of  his 
history  alone.  It  has  been  a  source  of  constant  sur- 
prise to  me  that  more  use  has  not  been  made  of 
biological  data  in  the  controversy  over  this  question. 
In  the  little  book  recently  edited  by  Mr.  Marvin  on 
various  aspects  of  the  concept  of  Progress,  there  was 
no  article  dealing  with  biological  progress;  and  even 
in  Professor  Bury's  notable  book,  The  Idea  of  Prog- 
ress, biology  was  as  little  and  as  unsatisfactorily 
drawn  upon  as  in  Dean  Inge's  writings  on  the 
subject. 


88  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

We  have  already  seen  that  a  certain  direction  ob- 
tains in  organic  evolution.  Into  the  details  of  this 
process  I  have  not  here  the  time  to  go;  we  must  be 
content  with  the  brief  enumeration  which  has  al- 
ready been  given  of  the  qualities  of  organisms  whose 
maximum  level,  and  to  a  lesser  degree  whose  average, 
have  increased  during  evolution. 

So  far  so  good.  But  a  process  may  be  going  in  a 
definite  direction  and  yet  not  be  satisfactory. 

This  road  leads  to  London;  this  other  to  Pud- 
dlington  Parva.  We  all  know  people  who  are  ob- 
viously headed  for  success,  while  it  is  on  record  that 
Mr.  Mantalini's  direction  was  towards  "the  demni- 
tion  bow-wows.*' 

But  we  know  that  we  ourselves  consciously  find 
value  in  things,  in  objects  and  aims,  in  directions  and 
processes.  In  this  we  are  unique  among  organisms, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  a  large  part  of  our  life  is  deter- 
mined by  the  relative  values  we  set  on  objects.  On 
the  whole,  however,  there  is  a  reasonable  amount  of 
agreement  among  different  individuals,  at  any  rate 
in  one  country  at  one  epoch,  as  to  what  they  call  good 
and  what  they  call  bad.  There  are  very  few  west- 
ern Europeans  who  find  dirt  or  untruthfulness  good, 
knowledge  or  bravery  bad. 

When  we  look  into  the  trend  of  biological  evolu- 
tion, we  find  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  it  has  operated 
to  produce  on  the  whole  what  we  find  good,  to  bring 
into  being  more  and  more  things  on  which  we  can 
set  positive  value.    This  is  not  to  say  that  progress 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  89 

is  an  inevitable  "law  of  nature,"  but  that  it  has  ac- 
tually occurred,  and  that  its  occurrence  provides  an 
external  sanction  for  many  of  our  subjective  human 
hopes  and  ideals. 

True  that  we  are  ourselves  a  product  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process  and  might  therefore  be  thought 
biased.  None  the  less,  it  is  clear  that  if  a  degenerate 
animal  like  a  tapeworm,  or  one  inevitably  specialized 
like  a  hermit-crab,  could  possess  and  enunciate  val- 
ues, they  would  be  of  a  very  different  nature  from 
our  own.  But  we  should  further  find  that  the  direc- 
tion of  the  evolutionary  process  which  led  to  the 
former  was  directly  opposed  to  the  main  trend,  that 
of  the  latter  more  or  less  at  right  angles  to  it.  The 
general  coincidence  of  the  main  observable  trend  and 
of  our  own  concepts  of  value  warrants  us  in  calling 
the  one  progressive,  and  in  feeling  that  the  other  is 
no  mere  isolated  flicker  in  an  alien  or  hostile  world, 
but  finds  a  sanction  and  a  resting-place  in  being  part 
of  something  vastly  bigger  than  itself.  The  remark- 
able and  important  fact  for  man  is  to  find,  in  spite 
of  all  the  apparently  fundamental  differences  be- 
tween his  organization  and  his  evolutionary  methods 
and  those  of  lower  organisms,  in  spite  of  the  wide- 
spread degeneration  and  "blind-alleyism"  to  be  seen 
in  evolution,  that  the  direction  in  which  he  desires 
to  go  coincides  with  the  resultant,  the  main  direction 
of  organic  evolution.  There  are  no  ideals,  there  is 
no  purpose,  in  fish  or  ant  or  tree:  but  man's  ideals 
and  purposes  are  the  outcome  of  the  blind  interplay 


90  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

of  forces  in  which  fish  and  ant  and  tree  play  their 
unwitting  roles.  True  again  that  further  analysis 
shows  that  the  methods  of  evolutionary  progress  are 
often  crude,  wasteful,  and  slow:  that  some  of  our 
values  are  unreal  or  artificial:  but  this  does  not  de- 
stroy the  main  fact,  and  only  means  that  each  side 
can  here  learn  something  from  the  other. 

The  main  fact  abides — that  progress  is  an  evolu- 
tionary reality,  and  that  an  analysis  of  the  modes  of 
biological  progress  may  often  help  us  in  our  quest 
for  human  progress. 

The  next  great  problem  on  which  biology  has 
something  to  say  to  sociology  is  that  eternal  one  of 
the  relation  between  individual  and  community.  As 
it  is  sometimes  put,  Does  the  individual  exist  for  the 
State,  or  the  State  for  the  individual?  In  all  non- 
human  biological  aggregates — cell-colonies,  second- 
grade  aggregates  or  metazoan  organisms,  third-grade 
aggregates  like  Siphonophora  and  insect  communities 
— the  very  existence  of  the  aggregate  as  a  unit,  its 
biological  efficiency  and  success,  depend  upon  a  per- 
manent division  of  labour  between  its  members, 
upon  their  thoroughgoing  specialization.  This  al- 
ways and  inevitably  involves  a  sacrifice  of  certain  of 
their  potentialities  to  greater  efficiency  in  one  of  a 
few  actual  functions,  and  in  evolution  a  progressive 
subordination  of  the  smaller  unit  to  the  aggregate. 

At  first  sight,  biological  principles  seem  to  con- 
tradict themselves  on  this  subject.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  human  individual  is,  or,  we  had  better  say,  has 


BIOLOGY  AND   SOCIOLOGY  91 

the  potentiality  of  being  the  highest  type  of  organ- 
ism in  existence — far  higher,  biologically  speaking, 
not  only  than  any  human  community  now  in  exist- 
ence, but  than  any  which  we  could  possibly  imagine 
as  coming  into  existence  in  the  future.  When  we  re- 
member the  general  agreement  of  biological  progress 
with  our  human  values,  it  is  clear  that  to  degrade 
the  individual  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  is 
wrong — a  biological  crime. 

On  the  other  hand,  human  progress  depends  and 
will  always  depend  to  an  extent  scarcely  to  be  over- 
rated upon  the  proper  organization  of  the  commu- 
nity. So  long  as  present  competition  continues,  the 
very  survival  of  a  nation  may  easily  depend  upon 
the  efficiency  of  its  organization  as  a  community. 
Biological  as  well  as  human  experience  makes  it  per- 
fectly plain  that  such  success,  in  a  unit  which  is  it- 
self an  aggregate  of  smaller  units,  depends  upon  the 
degree  of  specialization  of  these  constituent  units  and 
the  division  of  labour  and  co-operation  between 
them. 

Biology  here  then  lays  down  that  human  indi- 
viduals should  become  more  and  more  specialized  if 
progress  is  to  continue;  but  since  specialization  im- 
plies the  sacrifice  of  many  potentialities  for  the  good 
of  the  whole,  this  apparently  contradicts  what  we 
have  just  inculcated  above. 

This  is  where  our  human  flexibility  comes  in.  Man 
should  neither  live  whole-heartedly  for  himself,  nor 
throw  his  individuality,  ant-like,  beneath  the  wheels 


92  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

of  the  community  Juggernaut.  He  can  escape  from 
the  dilemma  by  passing  from  one  state  to  the  other. 
For  part  of  his  time,  he  can  apply  his  energies  as  a 
specialized  unit — for  the  rest,  he  can  be  a  complete 
individual,  realizing  the  various  potentialities  of  his 
many-sided  nature,  with  the  community  contribut- 
ing to  his  development,  not  he  to  the  community's. 
And  not  only  can  he,  but  he  should  act  thus. 

Be  it  noted,  to  avoid  misapprehension,  that  I  have 
here  been  using  the  community  to  denote  the  single 
aggregate  unit  which  from  the  beginning  has  played 
such  an  important  part  biologically  in  human  evolu- 
tion, not  merely  as  denoting  the  sum  of  individuals 
considered  separately. 

Thus  biology  gives  a  definite  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion too.  Pure  individualism  is  condemned,  and  so 
is  what  we  may  call  ant-and-bee  socialism.  Some 
form  of  the  "dual  day/'  to  use  a  current  phrase,  or  at 
least  of  the  "dual  life,"  is  the  method  which  seems  to 
be  in  accord  with  the  enduring  principles  of  biology, 
although  the  precise  details  are  not  and  cannot  be 
the  biologist's  concern,  and  particular  lives,  such  as 
that  of  the  creative  artist,  who  moves  on  a  different 
plane  of  reality,  escape  his  analysis. 

I  have  reserved  to  the  close  that  biological  prin- 
ciple which  has  been  most  often  and  most  seriously 
misapplied  in  sociology  and  politics — the  struggle 
for  existence.  Never  was  the  proverb  about  the 
Devil's  quoting  Scripture  better  exemplified  than  in 
this  matter.     This  fundamental  idea  of  Darwin's  has 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  93 

been  used  as  justification  for  three  totally  different 
and  indeed  incompatible  political  doctrines.  In  Eng- 
land, it  has  served  chiefly  to  bolster  up  laissez-faire 
individualism  and  free  competition.  In  Germany 
in  the  years  immediately  succeeding  the  publication 
of  the  Origin  of  Species,  it  was  seized  upon  by  the 
Socialists  as  implying  equal  opportunity  for  all  as 
against  feudalism  or  hereditary  aristocracy.  Later 
in  the  same  country  (and  to  a  certain  extent  else- 
where) it  was  abundantly  employed  as  a  theoretical 
support  for  militarism. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  use  of  it  as  sole  principle 
governing  the  interrelation  of  biological  units  is 
wholly  unjustified.  As  has  been  shown  by  a  number 
of  writers,  among  whom  may  especially  be  men- 
tioned Darwin  himself,  Ritchie  in  his  Darwinism 
and  Politics,  and  Kropotkin  in  his  Mutual  Aid, 
the  struggle  for  existence  is  only  one  of  two  possi- 
bilities in  this  relationship:  the  other  is  that  of  co- 
operation, of  mutual  aid,  which  is  especially  well 
marked  in  the  building  up  of  higher-grade  units  from 
a  multiplicity  of  smaller  lower-grade  ones.  Two  of 
the  most  important  steps  in  the  whole  evolutionary 
process  have  been  based  on  the  co-operation  of  units 
— the  origin  of  multicellular  from  unicellular  organ- 
isms, and  the  development  of  true  man,  with  his  so- 
cial life,  from  his  pre-human  ancestor.  It  is  also 
prominent  in  the  lives  of  many  species  of  the  high- 
est groups — insects,  mammals,  and  birds:  witness 
the  ants  and  bees,  the  rook,  the  wild  dog,  the  ele- 


94  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

phant,  the  baboon.  In  fact,  once  the  bodily  special- 
ization of  units  has  reached  a  certain  pitch,  progress, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  only  possible  through  mental  de- 
velopment, and  this  in  the  great  majority  of  cases 
brings  about  aggregation  into  some  sort  of  commu- 
nity, held  together  by  mental  bonds. 

Besides  aggregation  of  similar  units,  there  has  fre- 
quently been  co-operation  between  units  of  unlike 
character  and  origin — witness  symbiosis,  as  in  li- 
chens; the  relation  between  many  insects  and  flowers; 
the  formation  of  flocks  consisting  of  two  or  more 
species,  as  with  jackdaws  and  rooks,  and  many  other 
cases. 

Competition  and  co-operation  both  occur  through- 
out the  whole  of  evolution:  but  co-operation  comes 
to  play  an  ever  more  considerable  part  in  higher 
forms.  In  lower  organisms  enormous  overproduc- 
tion is  of  no  great  consequence;  their  organization  is 
simple,  and,  given  favourable  conditions,  they  can 
turn  inorganic  matter  into  their  own  specific  sub- 
stance at  a  great  rate.  But  higher  forms  are  more 
complex,  more  delicately  balanced,  and  longer  lived. 
Accordingly,  waste  of  life  is  of  greater  consequence 
to  them,  and  methods  by  which  a  struggle  on  the 
grand  scale  can  be  minimized  tend  to  be  more  and 
more  adopted.  We  find  regularly,  for  instance,  a  re- 
duction of  the  number  of  offspring  in  higher  groups 
together  with  greater  parental  care. 

Thus  co-operation,  for  still  fresh  reasons,  is  bio- 
logically important  for  the  higher  groups.    The  prob- 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  95 

lem  is  becoming  increasingly  pressing  for  the  human 
race,  since  the  time  is  in  sight  when  the  whole  habit- 
able area  of  the  globe  will  be  colonized,  up  to  a  cer- 
tain level  of  density  and  efficiency,  by  members  of 
the  more  advanced  races.  Biologically  speaking,  it 
is  perfectly  clear  that  some  co-operative  system,  in- 
volving federation  in  one  form  or  another,  is  the 
proper  system  to  adopt;  and  that  the  "world-state" 
— not  necessarily  organized  after  the  plan  of  our  pres- 
ent highly  specialized  nationalist-industrialist  states, 
which  appear  happily  to  represent  only  a  temporary 
phase  of  evolution,  but  none  the  less  an  organic  real- 
ity, a  co-operative  unit — that  the  "world-state"  is  not 
merely  a  figment  of  unpractical  dreamers,  but  an 
obviously  desirable  aim  for  humanity.  Kant,  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  ago  even,  had  seen  clearly  enough 
that  some  universal  society  was  a  necessity  for  the 
unfolding  of  human  possibility;  and  had  gone  further 
and  pointed  out  that  there  were  indications  of  a 
movement  of  civilization  in  that  direction.  In  our 
time,  this  movement  has  been  retarded  by  the  ex- 
traordinary and  mushroom  growth  of  National- 
ism, in  which  to  the  average  man  his  "Country" 
(really  Nation)  has  become  his  most  real  God.  In 
the  last  hundred  years,  Nationalism  has  usurped  the 
place  of  Religion  as  the  most  important  super-indi- 
vidual interest  of  individuals — has  indeed  in  some 
sense  become  a  religion.  It  is  leading  the  world  into 
an  impasse,  as  do  all  incomplete  and  partial  concep- 
tions; but,  in  the  Hague  Court  and  the  League  of 


96  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

Nations,  has  already  generated  the  seeds  of  what 
will  in  time  devour  it.^ 

To  sum  up,  we  may  say  that  the  crude  application 
to  human  affairs  of  the  doctrine  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  torn  from  its  biological  context,  isolated 
and  over-emphasized,  is  wholly  unwarranted.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  struggle  does  continue,  both  of  the 
direct  and  indirect  type  defined  by  Darwin:  and 
there  is  no  prospect  of  it  ceasing  to  play  an  important 
part  in  human  biology.  Co-operation  is  not,  any 
more  than  competition,  to  be  taken  as  the  sole  desir- 
able principle.  Panaceas  of  this  sort  do  not  exist, 
except  to  make  bubble  reputations  and  quack  for- 
tunes. Even  within  such  a  highly  organized  co- 
operative unit  as  the  mammalian  body  a  struggle 
continues — the  different  tissues  are  in  competition 
with  each  other  for  food,  and  if  the  available  supply 
diminishes  below  the  necessary  level,  some  tissues 
will  be  drawn  upon  by  other  more  successful  com- 
petitors, and  the  struggle  will  lead  to  an  end-result 
in  which  the  proportion  of  the  various  kinds  of  cells 
comes  to  be  very  different  from  what  they  were  in 
the  normal  well-nourished  body."^  That  is  a  purely 
biological  example.  In  man,  since  the  unification  of 
the  community  is  of  a  low  order,  it  is  inevitable  that 
individuals  and  sections  will  continue  in  some  form 
of  competition  with  each  other:  not  only  this,  how- 

«See,  e.g.,  Wells,  '21,  pp.  558.  666. 

"^  See  Roux,  '81,  for  a  discussion  of  this  important  extension  of 
Darwinism. 


BIOLOGY  AND   SOCIOLOGY  97 

ever,  but  the  additional  fact  that  man's  mental  or- 
ganization reacts  strongly  to  the  stimulus  of  competi- 
tion make  it  probable  that  a  "struggle"  of  some  sort 
will  not  only  be  inevitable  but  up  to  a  point  beneficial 
in  any  form  of  society.  What  is  more,  once  co-opera- 
tion exists,  competition  between  the  co-operative 
units  is  necessary  to  bring  out  the  full  efficiency  of 
their  combination. 

All  that  the  biologist  can  do  is  to  point  out  that 
neither  the  one-sided  application  of  the  principle  of 
struggle  nor  of  that  of  co-operation  is  biologically 
sound.  But,  as  everywhere  else  in  human  conduct, 
after  the  broad  principles  have  been  grasped,  success 
lies  always  in  a  delicate,  continuous  adjustment  of 
conflicting  claims,  in  what  one  may  call  a  personal 
conscious  effort.  Struggle  is  universal :  but  by  itself 
it  can  only  lead  to  a  certain  stage  of  evolutionary 
progress. 

The  half-baked  moralist  may  lay  down  the  law 
about  right  and  wrong  with  the  most  positive  assur- 
ance; but,  by  not  paying  attention  to  the  necessity 
for  sweet  reasonableness,  give-and-take,  unselfish- 
ness, for  thought  about  the  thousand  and  one  details 
of  daily  conduct,  he  may  be  making  himself  and  his 
wife  thoroughly  unhappy,  ruining  his  family's 
chances,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  thoroughly  im- 
moral without  once  suspecting  it. 

It  is  in  a  very  similar  way  that  the  militarist,  for 
instance,  fortifying  himself  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  with  what  he  regards  as  an 


98  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

impregnable  sanction  for  his  theories,  is  in  reality 
acting  immorally  because  not  attempting  to  envisage 
the  whole  problem. 

There  is  one  very  interesting  evolutionary  point 
which  well  illustrates  the  difference  between  pure 
biology  and  pure  sociology,  and  yet  emphasizes  the 
natural  connection  between  the  two.  Once  again  it 
has  a  connection  with  the  greater  flexibility  of  hu- 
man mind.  As  we  have  seen,  in  the  lowest  animals 
behaviour  is  for  the  most  part  unvarying,  hereditarily 
determined:  the  organism  is  capable  of  a  number  of 
definite  reactions,  and  if  these  do  not  suffice  to  ex- 
tricate it  from  difllculties,  it  perishes.  The  first  step 
towards  gaining  is  the  power  of  learning.  "Once  bit- 
ten, twice  shy"  is  applicable  to  all  higher  vertebrates; 
and  it  is  not  only  the  burnt  child  who  dreads  the 
fire  (although  a  study  of  moths  and  candles  will 
convince  us  that  "Lepidopteran"  cannot  be  substi- 
tuted as  subject  of  the  proverb). 

When,  as  in  the  higher  mammals,  the  power  of 
learning  by  experience  is  rapid,  the  individual  or- 
ganism is  better  able  to  adjust  itself  to  the  dangers 
of  life,  and  once  more  there  is  less  sacrifice  of  indi- 
viduals in  the  struggle.  The  same  organism  per- 
sists: but  of  two  possible  types  of  behaviour,  the  un- 
modified innate  type  is  eliminated,  the  type  modi- 
fied by  experience  survives.  If  we  like  to  put  it  in 
a  way  which  is  perhaps  not  wholly  justifiable,  there 
comes  into  being,  besides  the  struggle  for  existence 
between  individuals,  a  struggle  for  existence  between 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  99 

different  possible  modes  of  reaction  of  one  and  the 
same  organism. 

With  the  advent  of  man  upon  the  scene,  still  new 
possibilities  arise.  First  of  all,  he  is  capable  of  ideas, 
which,  biologically  speaking,  are  to  be  regarded  as 
potentialities  of  behaviour.  There  is  no  evidence  at 
present  that  even  the  highest  animals  possess  ideas 
or  even  images.®  Secondly,  these  ideas  are  trans- 
missible by  speech  and  writing,  and  accordingly  tra- 
dition has  come  into  being,  so  that  modification  of 
behaviour  by  experience  can  be  operative  not  only 
within  the  individual  life,  not  only  from  one  genera- 
tion to  the  next  immediately  succeeding,  as  in  many 
mammals,  but  for  an  indefinite  period.  The  experi- 
ence of  Moses,  Archimedes,  or  Charlemagne,  of  Jesus, 
Newton,  or  James  Watt  is  modifying  our  behaviour 
to-day. 

The  result,  both  for  individuals  and  communities, 
is  that  a  selection  of  ideas  instead  of  a  selection  of 
organic  units  can  to  an  ever  greater  extent  take  place; 
and  thus  the  actual  extinction  of  living  matter  be 
increasingly  avoided.  For  instance,  we  find  the  sub- 
stitution of  judicial  procedure,  in  which  the  ideas  of 
two  disputants  about  the  matter  in  dispute  are 
weighed  and  a  selection  made  in  favour  of  one,  for 
various  forms  of  violence  and  combat  in  which  one 
or  other  of  the  actual  disputants  was  often  elimi- 
nated.    Or  again,  in  struggles  between  communities, 

8  See  Thorndike,  op.  cit.;  Washburn,  The  Animal  Mmd.    New 
York,  1913, 


100  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

even  though  warfare  is  still  resorted  to,  yet  it  does  not 
operate  in  the  same  way  as  in  earlier  stages  of  human 
evolution.  A  salient  example  of  this  is  afforded  by 
the  result  of  the  recent  war  to  Germany;  although  an 
equally  good  instance  can  be  seen,  for  example,  in 
the  Boer  War.  In  primitive  wars,  the  defeated  tribe 
was  wherever  possible  exterminated  or  enslaved:  it 
ceased  to  exist  as  an  independent  unit,  and  the  great 
majority  of  its  male  members  were  killed.  This  is 
impossible  under  present  conditions:  and  all  those 
who  preserve,  or  have  ever  possessed,  any  political 
sanity  aim,  for  instance,  neither  at  the  physical  nor 
the  economic  destruction  or  subordination  of  Ger- 
many, but — to  use  one  of  those  attractive  catchwords 
that  sounded  so  well  in  war-time — at  her  ''change  of 
heart" — in  other  words,  the  extermination,  not  of  a 
nation,  but  of  a  national  tradition. 

To  what  extent  this  substitution  of  mental  for 
physical  will  continue  it  is  hard  to  say;  already,  to 
take  another  field,  the  multiplication  of  cheap  books 
has  led  to  an  ever  increasing  number  of  men  and 
women  fmding  most  of  their  adventure  and  romance 
in  books  instead  of  in  the  life  that  we  are  accustomed 
to  call  real.  But  that  would  lead  us  away  from  our 
main  point — enough  to  have  indicated  another  great 
difference  between  processes  above  and  below  the 
human  level. 

There  are  numerous  important  questions  concern- 
ing our  right  to  apply  biological  ideas  of  heredity 
directly  to  human  beings  which  I  would  have  liked 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  101 

to  touch  Upon.  But  for  one  thing  1  have  not  the 
time,  and  for  another,  Mr.  Carr-Saunders  in  his  re- 
cent book  on  the  Population  Problem  has  dealt  so 
fully  with  the  relation  between  biological  inheritance 
and  what  may  be  called  tradition-inheritance,  that  I 
omit  them  with  a  good  conscience. 

In  this  brief  treatment  I  have  had  to  ask  you  to 
take  conclusions  on  trust,  without  presenting  the 
evidence  on  which  they  are  based;  this,  however, 
is  inevitable  when  transferring  ideas  from  one  science 
to  another.  I  have  attempted  to  show,  first,  that 
biology  can  profit  by  incorporating  certain  conclu- 
sions of  sociology  and  so  rounding  off  and  complet- 
ing certain  of  its  own  principles:  on  the  other  hand,  I 
have  put  before  you  my  belief  that  there  are  certain 
basic  biological  principles  which  must  be  taken  into 
account  by  the  sociologist — principles  which  hold 
good  in  sociology  because  man  too  is  an  organism. 

By  now,  however,  we  can  see  more  clearly  the  way 
in  which  the  various  sciences  with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned, of  whose  relations  we  had  something  to  say 
at  the  beginning  of  this  essay,  properly  interlock. 

They  interlock  thus.  The  physico-chemical  sci- 
ences are  basic  to  biology.  Organisms  are  made  of 
the  same  substances  as  are  non-living  compounds; 
their  processes  are  therefore  conformable  to  certain 
physico-chemical  laws,  such  as  the  indestructibility 
of  matter,  the  conservation  of  energy,  and  so  forth; 
and  in  so  far  as  we  analyse  the  material  aspect  of  life, 
physico-chemical    concepts    are    adequate.     On   the 


102  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

Other  hand,  physico-chemical  concepts — or  at  least 
our  present  ones — are  not  all-sufficient.  In  the 
first  place,  the  very  complicated  arrangement  of  mat- 
ter which  is  found  in  living  substance  has  not  been 
yet  sufficiently  analysed  by  physics  and  chemistry: 
accordingly  we  find  many  processes  occurring  in  bi- 
ology— such  as  the  directional  changes  in  evolution 
of  which  we  have  spoken — which  could  not  have  been 
foretold  on  our  present  physico-chemical  knowledge, 
but  must  be  investigated  separately  as  adding  to  our 
store  of  facts  and  principles,  in  the  confident  hope 
that  a  synthesis  will  one  day  be  possible.  Secondly, 
a  whole  new  category  of  phenomena,  the  psycholog- 
ical, is  first  met  with  in  biology,  and  to  this  we  cannot 
as  yet  apply  physical  or  chemical  ideas  at  all. 

For  a  combination  of  these  two  reasons,  biology 
deals  with  certain  concepts  which  are  not  implicit  in 
current  physico-chemical  ideas.  Physics  and  chem- 
istry are  basic  for  biology,  but  they  are  not 
exhaustive. 

In  a  very  similar  way,  biology  is  basic  for  sociol- 
ogy, but  again  not  exhaustive.  Certain  limits  are  set 
to  human  life  through  man's  organic  nature.  Cer- 
tain of  his  activities  can  be  completely  analysed  in 
terms  of  biology.  But  other  of  his  activities,  espe- 
cially those  concerned  with  his  new  type  of  mental 
organization,  find  no  counterpart  in  the  rest  of  the 
biological  kingdoms,  and  must  be  studied  in  and  for 
themselves. 

Bergson  would  have  us  believe  that  evolution  is 


BIOLOGY   AND   SOCIOLOGY  103 

creative.  It  is  better  to  say,  with  Lloyd  Morgan, 
that  it  is  emergent.  With  new  degrees  of  complex- 
ity, new  qualitative  differences  emerge.  Thus  the 
sciences  are  a  hierarchy,  the  subject-matter  of  one 
constituting  the  foundation  for  the  next  in  the  series. 
All  that  biology  can  do  for  sociology  is  to  help  her 
to  build  her  foundations  solidly  and  correctly:  but 
we  all  know  that  without  good  foundations  no  build- 
ing is  safe. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bury,  J.  B.,  '20.    "The  Idea  of  Progress.*'    London,  1920. 

Carr-Saunders,  A.  M.,  '22.  'The  Population  Problem." 
Oxford,  1922. 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  '01.  "Mind  in  Evolution."  London, 
1901. 

Huxley,  J.  S.,  '12.  "The  Individual  in  the  Animal  King- 
dom."   Cambridge,  1912. 

Keyser,  '21.     "Science"  (N.S.)     New  York,  1921. 

Kropotkin,  Prince,  '08.  "Mutual  Aid,  A  Factor  in  Evo- 
lution."   London,  1908. 

Lloyd  Morgan,  C,  '23.  "Emergent  Evolution."  Lon- 
don, 1923. 

Marvin,  F.  S.  "Progress  and  History  (5th  Imp.).  Ox- 
ford, 1921. 

Radl,  E.,  '09.  "Geschichte  der  biologischen  Theorien," 
vol.  ii.    Leipzig,  1909. 

Ritchie,  '01.  "Darwinism  in  Politics"  (4th  Ed.).  Lon- 
don, 1901. 

Roberts,  Morley,  '20.  "Warfare  in  the  Human  Body." 
London,  1920. 


104  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

Roux,  W.,  '81.  "Der  Kampf  der  Teile  im  Organismics." 
1881. 

Sherrington,  '22.  "The  Advancement  of  Science,  1922." 
London,  1922. 

Spencer,  Herbert.  "First  Principles,"  "Principles  of  Biol- 
ogy," "Principles  of  Sociology." 

Thorndike,  E.  L.,  '11.  "Animal  Intelligence."  New 
York,  1911. 

Trotter,  W.,  '19.  "Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and 
War"  (2nd  Ed.).     London,  1919. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  '21.  "The  Outline  of  History."  London, 
1921. 


Ill 

ILS   N'^ONT  QUE   DE    L'AME! 
AN    ESSAY  ON    BIRD-^IND 


THE  BIRDS 

To  most  of  us,  a  bird's  a  feathered  song 
Which  for  our  pleasure  gives  a  voice  to  spring. 
We  make  a  symbol  of  its  airy  wing 

Bright  with  the  hberty  for  which  we  long. 

Or  we  discover  them  with  love  more  strong 
As  each  a  separate,  individual  thing 
Which  only  learns  to  act,  or  move,  or  sing 

In  ways  that  wholly  to  itself  belong. 

But  some  with  deeper  and  more  inward  sight 
See  them  a  part  of  that  one  Life  which  streams 

Slow  on,  towards  more  mind — a  part  more  light 
Then  we;  unburdened  with  regrets,  or  dreams, 

Or  thought.    A  winged  emotion  of  the  sky, 

The  birds  through  an  eternal  Present  fly. 

Oxford,  April  1923. 


ILS  N  ONT  QUE  DE  L  AMEI 
AN    ESSAY  ON    BIRD-MIND 

"0  Nightingale,  thou   surely  art 
A  creature  of  a  fiery  heart." 

— W.  Wordsworth. 

"The  inferior  animals,  when  the  conditions  of  life  are  favour- 
able, are  subject  to  periodical  fits  of  gladness,  affecting  them 
powerfully  and  standing  out  in  vivid  contrast  to  their  ordinary 
temper.  .  .  .  Birds  are  more  subject  to  this  universal  joyous  in- 
stinct than  mammals,  and  ...  as  they  are  much  freer  than 
mammals,  more  buoyant  and  graceful  in  action,  more  loquacious, 
and  have  voices  so  much  finer,  their  gladness  shows  itself  in  a 
greater  variety  of  ways,  with  more  regular  and  beautiful  mo- 
tions, and  with  melody." — W.  H.  Hudson. 

"How  do  you  know  but  ev'ry  Bird  that  cuts  the  airy  way 
Is  an  immense  world  of  delight,  clos'd  by  your  senses  five?" 

—  Blake. 


/ 


^^  ^  LS  nont  pas  de  cerveau — Us  n'ont  que  de 
lame."  A  dog  was  being  described,  with  all 
his  emotion,  his  apparent  passion  to  make  him- 
self understood,  his  failure  to  reach  comprehension; 
and  that  was  how  the  French  man  of  letters  summed 
up  the  brute  creation — "pas  de  cerveau — que  de 
I  ame. 

Nor  is  it  a  paradox:  it  is  a  half-truth  that  is  more 
than  half  true — more  true  at  least  than  its  converse, 
which  many  hold. 
There  is  a  large  school  to-day  who  assert  that  ani- 

107 


108  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

mals  are  ''mere  machines."  Machines  they  may  be: 
it  is  the  qualification  which  does  not  fit.  I  suppose 
that  by  saying  "mere"  machines  it  is  meant  to  imply 
that  they  have  the  soulless,  steely  quality  of  a  ma- 
chine which  goes  when  it  is  set  going,  stops  when  an- 
other lever  is  turned,  acts  only  in  obedience  to  outer 
stimuli,  and  is  in  fact  unemotional — a  bundle  of 
operations  without  any  quality  meriting  the  name  of 
a  self. 

It  is  true  that  the  further  we  push  our  analysis  of 
animal  behaviour,  the  more  we  find  it  composed  of  a 
series  of  automatisms,  the  more  we  see  it  rigorously 
determined  by  combination  of  inner  constitution  and 
outer  circumstance,  the  more  we  have  cause  to  deny 
to  animals  the  possession  of  anything  deserving  the 
name  of  reason,  ideals,  or  abstract  thought.  The 
more,  in  fact,  do  they  appear  to  us  as  mechanisms 
(which  is  a  much  better  word  than  machines,  since 
this  latter  carries  with  it  definite  connotations  of 
metal  or  wood,  electricity  or  steam).  They  are  mech- 
anisms, because  their  mode  of  operation  is  regular; 
but  they  differ  from  any  other  type  of  mechanism 
known  to  us  in  that  their  working  is — to  put  it  in  the 
most  non-committal  way — accompanied  by  emotion. 
It  is,  to  be  sure,  a  combination  of  emotion  with  rea- 
son that  we  attribute  to  a  soul;  but  none  the  less,  in 
popular  parlance  at  least,  the  emotional  side  is  pre- 
dominant, and  pure  reason  is  set  over  against  the 
emotional  content  which  gives  soul  its  essence.    And 


AN    ESSAY  ON    BIRD-MIND  109 

this  emotional  content  we  most  definitely  find  run- 
ning through  the  lives  of  higher  animals. 

The  objection  is  easily  and  often  raised  that  we 
have  no  direct  knowledge  of  emotion  in  an  animal, 
no  direct  proof  of  the  existence  of  any  purely  mental 
process  in  its  life.  But  this  is  as  easily  laid  as  raised. 
We  have  no  direct  knowledge  of  emotion  or  any  other 
conscious  process  in  the  life  of  any  human  being  save 
our  individual  selves;  and  yet  we  feel  no  hesitation 
in  deducing  it  from  others'  behaviour.  Although 
it  is  an  arguable  point  whether  biological  science  may 
not  for  the  moment  be  better  served  by  confining  the 
subject-matter  and  terms  of  analysis  to  behaviour 
alone,  it  is  a  very  foolhardy  "behaviorist"  indeed  who 
denies  the  existence  of  emotion  and  conscious  process! 

But  the  practical  value  of  this  method  of  thinking 
is,  as  I  say,  an  arguable  point;  it  is  indeed  clear  that 
a  great  immediate  advance,  especially  in  non-human 
biology,  has  been  and  may  still  be  made  by  translat- 
ing the  uncertain  and  often  risky  terms  of  subjective 
psychology  into  those  based  upon  the  objective  de- 
scription of  directly  observable  behaviour.  How- 
ever, it  is  equally  easy  to  maintain,  and  I  for  one 
maintain  it,  that  to  omit  a  whole  category  of  phe- 
nomena from  consideration  is  unscientific,  and  must 
in  the  long  run  lead  to  an  unreal,  because  limited, 
view  of  things;  and  that,  when  great  detail  of  analy- 
sis is  not  required,  but  only  broad  lines  and  general 
comparison,  the  psychological  terminology,  of  mem- 


no  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ory,  fear,  anger,  curiosity,  affection,  is  the  simpler 
and  more  direct  tool,  and  should  be  used  to  supple- 
ment and  make  more  real  the  cumbersome  and  less 
complete  behavioristic  terminology,  of  modification 
of  behaviour,  fright,  aggression,  and  the  rest. 

It  is  at  least  abundantly  clear  that,  if  we  are  to 
believe  in  the  principle  of  uniformity  at  all,  we  must 
ascribe  emotion  to  animals  as  well  as  to  men:  the 
similarity  of  behaviour  is  so  great  that  to  assert  the 
absence  of  a  whole  class  of  phenomena  in  one  case, 
its  presence  in  the  other,  is  to  make  scientific  reason- 
ing a  farce. 

"Pas  de  cerveau — que  de  I'dme."  Those  especially 
who  have  studied  birds  will  subscribe  to  this.  The 
variety  of  their  emotions  is  greater,  their  intensity 
more  striking,  than  in  four-footed  beasts,  while  their 
power  of  modifying  behaviour  by  experience  is  less, 
the  subjection  to  instinct  more  complete.  Those 
who  are  interested  in  the  details  can  see  from  experi- 
ments, such  as  those  recorded  by  Mr.  Eliot  Howard 
in  his  Territory  in  Bird  Life,  how  limited  is  a 
bird's  power  of  adjustment;  but  I  will  content  myself 
with  a  single  example,  one  of  nature's  experiments, 
recorded  by  Mr.  Chance  last  year  by  the  aid  of  the 
cinematograph — the  behaviour  of  small  birds  when 
the  routine  of  their  life  is  upset  by  the  presence  of  a 
young  Cuckoo  in  the  nest. 

When,  after  prodi'gious  exertions,  the  unfledged 
Cuckoo  has  ejected  its  foster-brothers  and  sisters 
frorn  their  home,  it  sometimes  happens  that  one  of 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  1  1  1 

them  is  caught  on  or  close  to  the  rim  of  the  nest. 
One  such  case  was  recorded  by  Mr.  Chance's  camera. 
The  unfortunate  fledgling  scrambled  about  on  the 
branches  below  the  nest;  the  parent  Pipit  flew  back 
with  food;  the  cries  and  open  mouth  of  the  ejected 
bird  attracted  attention,  and  it  was  fed;  and  the 
mother  then  settled  down  upon  the  nest  as  if  all  was 
in  normal  order.  Meanwhile,  the  movements  of  the 
fledgling  in  the  foreground  grew  feebler,  and  one 
could  imagine  its  voice  quavering  off,  fainter  and 
fainter,  as  its  vital  warmth  departed.  At  the  next 
return  of  the  parent  with  food  the  young  one  was 
dead. 

It  was  the  utter  stupidity  of  the  mother  that  was 
so  impressive — its  simple  response  to  stimulus — of 
feeding  to  the  stimulus  of  the  young's  cry  and  open 
mouth,  of  brooding  to  that  of  the  nest  with  some- 
thing warm  and  feathery  contained  in  it — its  neglect 
of  any  steps  whatsoever  to  restore  the  fallen  nestling 
to  safety.  It  was  almost  as  pitiable  an  exhibition 
of  unreason  as  the  well-attested  case  of  the  wasp  at- 
tendant on  a  wasp-grub,  who,  on  being  kept  without 
food  for  some  time,  grew  more  and  more  restless,  and 
eventually  bit  off  the  hind  end  of  the  grub  and  offered 
it  to  what  was  left ! 

Birds  in  general  are  stupid,  in  the  sense  of  being 
little  able  to  meet  unforeseen  emergencies;  but  their 
lives  are  often  emotional,  and  their  emotions  are 
richly  and  finely  expressed.  I  have  for  years  been 
interested  in  observing  the  courtship  and  the  rela- 


112  ESSAYS  OF  A  BIOLOGIST 

tions  of  the  sexes  in  birds,  and  have  in  my  head  a 
number  of  pictures  of  their  notable  and  dramatic 
moments.  These  seem  to  me  to  illustrate  so  well  the 
emotional  furnishing  of  birds,  and  to  provide  such  a 
number  of  windows  into  that  strange  thing  we  call  a 
bird's  mind,  that  I  shall  simply  set  some  of  them 
down  as  they  come  to  me. 

First,  then,  the  coastal  plain  of  Louisiana;  a  pond, 
made  and  kept  as  a  sanctuary  by  that  public-spirited 
bird-lover  Mr.  E.  A.  Mcllhenny,  filled  with  noisy 
crowds  of  Egrets  and  little  egret-like  Herons.  These, 
in  great  flocks,  fly  back  across  the  "Mexique  Bay" 
in  the  spiing  months  from  their  winter  quarters  in 
South  America.  Arrived  in  Louisiana,  they  feed 
and  roost  in  flocks  for  a  time,  but  gradually  split  up 
into  pairs.  Each  pair,  detaching  themselves  from 
the  flocks,  choose  a  nesting-site  (by  joint  delibera- 
tion) among  the  willows  and  maples  of  the  breeding 
pond.  And  then  follows  a  curious  phenomenon.  In- 
stead of  proceeding  at  once  to  biological  business  in 
the  shape  of  nest-building  and  egg-laying,  they  in- 
dulge in  what  can  only  be  styled  a  honeymoon.  For 
three  or  four  days  both  members  of  the  pair  are  al- 
ways on  the  chosen  spot,  save  for  the  necessary  vis- 
its which  they  alternately  pay  to  the  distant  feeding 
grounds.  When  both  are  there,  they  will  spend 
hours  at  a  time  sitting  quite  still,  just  touching  one 
another.  Generally  the  hen  sits  on  a  lower  branch, 
resting  her  head  against  the  cock  bird's  flanks;  they 
look  for  all  the  world  like  one  of  those  inarticulate 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  113 

but  happy  couples  upon  a  bench  in  the  park  in  spring. 
Now  and  again,  however,  this  passivity  of  sentiment 
gives  place  to  wild  excitement.  Upon  some  unascer- 
tainable  cause  the  two  birds  raise  their  necks  and 
wings,  and,  with  loud  cries,  intertwine  their  necks. 
This  is  so  remarkable  a  sight  that  the  first  time  I  wit- 
nessed it  I  did  not  fully  credit  it,  and  only  after  it 
had  happened  before  my  eyes  on  three  or  four  sepa- 
rate occasions  was  I  forced  to  admit  it  as  a  regular 
occurrence  in  their  lives.  The  long  necks  are  so 
flexible  that  they  can  and  do  make  a  complete  single 
turn  round  each  other — a  real  true-lover's-knot! 
This  once  accomplished,  each  bird  then — most  won- 
derful of  all — runs  its  beak  quickly  and  amorously 
through  the  just  raised  aigrettes  of  the  other,  again 
and  again,  nibbling  and  clappering  them  from  base 
to  tip.  Of  this  I  can  only  say  that  it  seemed  to  bring 
such  a  pitch  of  emotion  that  I  could  have  wished  to 
be  a  Heron  that  I  might  experience  it.  This  over, 
they  would  untwist  their  necks  and  subside  once  more 
into  their  usual  quieter  sentimentality. 

This,  alas!  I  never  saw  with  the  less  common 
little  White  Egrets,  but  with  the  Louisiana  Heron 
(which  should,  strictly  speaking,  be  called  an  egret 
too) ;  but  since  every  other  action  of  the  two  species 
is  (in  all  save  a  few  minor  details)  the  same,  I  as- 
sume that  the  flashing  white,  as  well  as  the  slate  and 
vinous  and  grey  birds,  behave  thus. 

The  greeting  ceremony  when  one  bird  of  the  pair, 
after  having  been  away  at  the  feeding  grounds,  re- 


114  ESSAYS   OF    A   BIOLOGIST 

joins  its  mate  is  also  beautiful.  Some  little  time  be- 
fore the  human  watcher  notes  the  other's  approach, 
the  waiting  bird  rises  on  its  branch,  arches  and 
spreads  its  wings,  lifts  its  aigrettes  into  a  fan  and 
its  head-plumes  into  a  crown,  bristles  up  the  feathers 
of  its  neck,  and  emits  again  and  again  a  hoarse  cry. 
The  other  approaches,  settles  in  the  branches  near 
by,  puts  itself  into  a  similar  position,  and  advances 
towards  its  mate;  and  after  a  short  excited  space 
they  settle  down  close  together.  This  type  of  greet- 
ing is  repeated  every  day  until  the  young  leave  the 
nest;  for  after  the  eggs  are  laid  both  sexes  brood, 
and  there  is  a  nest-relief  four  times  in  every  twenty- 
four  hours.  Each  time  the  same  attitudes,  the  same 
cries,  the  same  excitement;  only  now  at  the  end  of  it 
all,  one  steps  off  the  nest,  the  other  on.  One  might 
suppose  that  this  closed  the  performance.  But  no: 
the  bird  that  has  been  relieved  is  still  apparently  ani- 
mated by  stores  of  unexpended  emotion;  it  searches 
about  for  a  twig,  breaks  it  off  or  picks  it  up,  and  re- 
turns with  it  in  beak  to  present  to  the  other.  Dur- 
ing the  presentation  the  greeting  ceremony  is  again 
gone  through;  after  each  relief  the  whole  business  of 
presentation  and  greeting  may  be  repeated  two,  or 
four,  or  up  even  to  ten  or  eleven  times  before  the  free 
bird  flies  away. 

When  there  are  numerous  repetitions  of  the  cere- 
mony, it  is  extremely  interesting  to  watch  the  pro- 
gressive extinction  of  excitement.  During  the  last 
one  or  two  presentations  the  twig-bringing  bird  may 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  115 

scarcely  raise  his  wings  or  plumes,  and  will  often  be- 
tray an  absent  air,  turning  his  head  in  the  direction 
in  which  he  is  proposing  to  fly  off. 

No  one  who  has  seen  a  pair  of  Egrets  thus  change 
places  on  the  nest,  bodies  bowed  forward,  plumes  a 
cloudy  fan  of  lace,  absolute  whiteness  of  plumage 
relieved  by  gold  of  eye  and  lore  and  black  of  bill,  and 
the  whole  scene  animated  by  the  repeated,  excited 
cry,  can  ever  forget  it.  But  such  unforgettable  scenes 
are  not  confined  to  other  countries.  Here  in  Eng- 
land you  can  see  as  good;  I  have  seen  them  on  the 
reservoirs  of  Tring,  and  within  full  view  of  the  road 
by  Frensham  Pond — the  courtship  forms  and  dances 
of  the  Crested  Grebe. 

The  Crested  Grebe  is  happily  becoming  more  fa- 
miliar to  bird-lovers  in  England.  Its  brilliant  white 
belly,  protective  grey-brown  back,  rippleless  and  ef- 
fortless diving,  long  neck,  and  splendid  ruff  and  ear- 
tufts  of  black,  chestnut,  and  white,  conspire  to  make 
it  a  marked  bird.  In  the  winter  the  crest  is  small, 
and  even  when  fully  grown  in  spring  it  is  usually 
held  close  down  against  the  head,  so  as  to  be  not 
at  all  conspicuous.  When  it  is  spread,  it  is  almost, 
without  exception,  in  the  service  of  courtship  or  love- 
making.  Ten  years  ago  I  spent  my  spring  holiday 
watching  these  birds  on  the  Tring  reservoirs.  I  soon 
found  out  that  their  courtship,  like  the  Herons',  was 
mutual,  not  one-sidedly  masculine  as  in  Peacocks  or 
fowls.  It  consisted  most  commonly  in  a  little  cere- 
mony of  head-shaking.     The  birds  of  a  pair  come 


116  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

close,  face  one  another,  raise  their  necks,  and  half- 
spread  their  ruffs.  Then,  with  a  little  barking  note, 
they  shake  their  heads  rapidly,  following  this  by  a 
slow  swinging  of  them  from  side  to  side.  This  alter- 
nate shaking  and  swinging  continues  perhaps  a  dozen 
or  twenty  times;  and  the  birds  then  lower  their  stand- 
ards, become  normal  everyday  creatures,  and  betake 
themselves  to  their  fishing  or  resting  or  preening 
again.  This  is  the  commonest  bit  of  love-making; 
but  now  and  then  the  excitement  evident  even  in 
these  somewhat  casual  ceremonies  is  raised  to  greater 
heights  and  seems  to  reinforce  itself.  The  little 
bouts  of  shaking  are  repeated  again  and  again.  I 
have  seen  over  eighty  succeed  each  other  uninterrupt- 
edly. And  at  the  close  the  birds  do  not  relapse  into 
ordinary  life.  Instead,  they  raise  their  ruffs  still 
further,  making  them  almost  Elizabethan  in  shape. 
Then  one  bird  dives;  then  the  other:  the  seconds 
pass.  At  last,  after  perhaps  half  or  three-quarters  of 
a  minute  (half  a  minute  is  a  long  time  when  one  is 
thus  waiting  for  a  bird's  reappearance!)  one  after  the 
other  they  emerge.  Both  hold  masses  of  dark  brown- 
ish-green weed,  torn  from  the  bottom  of  the  pond, 
in  their  beaks,  and  carry  their  heads  down  and  back 
on  their  shoulders,  so  that  either  can  scarcely  see  any- 
thing of  the  other  confronting  it  save  the  concentric 
colours  of  the  raised  ruff.  In  this  position  they 
swim  together.  It  is  interesting  to  see  the  eager  looks 
of  the  first-emerged,  and  its  immediate  start  towards 
the  second  when  it  too  reappears.     They  approach. 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  117 

rapidly,  until  the  watcher  wonders  what  will  be  done 
to  avert  a  collision.  The  answer  is  simple:  there  is 
no  averting  of  a  collision!  But  the  collision  is  exe- 
cuted in  a  remarkable  way:  the  two  birds,  when  close 
to  each  other,  leap  up  from  the  water  and  meet  breast 
to  breast,  almost  vertical,  suddenly  revealing  the 
whole  flashing  white  under-surface.  They  keep 
themselves  in  this  position  by  violent  splashings  of 
the  feet,  rocking  a  little  from  side  to  side  as  if  danc- 
ing, and  very  gradually  sinking  down  (always  touch- 
ing with  their  breasts)  towards  the  horizontal. 

Meanwhile,  they  exchange  some  of  the  weed  they 
are  carrying;  or  at  least  nibbling  and  quick  move- 
ments of  the  head  are  going  on.  And  so  they  settle 
down  on  to  the  water,  shake  their  heads  a  few  times 
more,  and  separate,  changing  back  from  these  per- 
formers of  an  amazing  age-old  rite — age-old  but  ever 
fresh — into  the  feeding-  and  sleeping-machines  of 
every  day,  but  leaving  a  vision  of  strong  emotion, 
canalized  into  the  particular  forms  of  this  dive  and 
dance.  The  whole  performance  impresses  the 
watcher  not  only  with  its  strength,  but  as  being  ap- 
parently of  very  little  direct  (though  possibly  muth 
indirect)  biological  advantage,  the  action  being  self- 
exhausting,  not  stimulating  to  further  sexual  rela- 
tions, and  carried  out,  it  would  seem,  for  its  own  sake. 

Further  acquaintance  with  the  Grebe  only  deep- 
ened the  interest  and  made  clearer  the  emotional 
tinge  underlying  all  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  This 
bird,  too,  has  its  "greeting  ceremony";  but  since,  un- 


118  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

like  the  colonial  Herons  and  Egrets,  it  makes  every 
effort  to  conceal  its  nest,  this  cannot  take  place  at 
its  most  natural  moment,  that  of  nest-relief,  but  must 
be  made  to  happen  out  on  the  open  water  where  there 
are  no  secrets  to  betray.  If  the  sitting  bird  wishes  to 
leave  the  nest,  and  the  other  does  not  return,  it  flies 
off,  after  covering  the  eggs  with  weed,  in  search  of  its 
mate;  it  is  common  in  the  breeding  season  to  see  a 
Grebe  in  the  "search-attitude,"  with  neck  stretched 
up  and  slightly  forward  and  ear-tufts  erected,  emit- 
ting a  special  and  far-carrying  call.  When  this  call 
is  recognized  and  answered,  the  two  birds  do  nothing 
so  simple  as  to  fly  or  swim  to  each  other,  but  a  special 
and  obviously  exciting  ceremony  is  gone  through. 
The  bird  that  has  been  searched  for  and  found  puts 
itself  into  a  very  beautiful  attitude,  with  wings  half- 
spread  and  set  at  right  angles  to  the  body,  ruff  erected 
circularly,  and  head  drawn  back  upon  the  shoulders, 
so  that  nothing  is  visible  but  the  brilliant  rosette  of 
the  spread  ruff  in  the  centre  of  the  screen  of  wings, 
each  wing  showing  a  broad  bar  of  brilliant  white  on 
its  dusk-grey  surface.  In  this  position  it  swings  rest- 
lessly back  and  forth  in  small  arcs,  facing  towards  its 
mate.  The  discoverer  meanwhile  has  dived;  but, 
swimming  immediately  below  the  surface  of  the  wa- 
ter, its  progress  can  be  traced  by  the  arrowy  ripple  it 
raises.  Now  and  again  it  lifts  its  head  and  neck 
above  the  water,  periscope-wise,  to  assure  itself  of  its 
direction,  and  resumes  its  subaqueous  course.  Nor 
does  it  rise  just  in  front  of  the  other  bird;  but  swims 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  119 

under  and  just  beyond,  and,  as  its  mate  swings  round 
to  the  new  orientation,  emerges  in  a  really  extraor- 
dinary attitude.  At  the  last  it  must  have  dived  a 
little  deeper;  for  now  it  appears  perpendicularly  from 
the  water,  with  a  slowish  motion,  slightly  spiral,  the 
beak  and  head  pressed  down  along  the  front  of  the 
neck.  I  compared  it  in  my  notes  of  ten  years  ago 
with  "the  ghost  of  a  Penguin,"  and  that  comparison 
is  still  the  best  I  can  think  of  to  give  some  idea  of 
the  strange  unreality  of  its  appearance.  It  then 
settles  down  upon  the  water  and  the  pair  indulge 
in  one  of  their  never-failing  bouts  of  head-shaking. 

Two  mated  birds  rejoin  each  other  after  a  few 
hours'  separation.  Simple  enough  in  itself — but 
what  elaboration  of  detail,  what  piling  on  of  little 
excitements,  what  purveying  of  thrills! 

Other  emotions  too  can  be  well  studied  in  this  bird, 
notably  jealousy.  Several  times  I  have  seen  little 
scenes  like  the  following  enacted.  A  pair  is  floating 
idly  side  by  side,  necks  drawn  right  down  so  that  the 
head  rests  on  the  centre  of  the  back.  One — gener- 
ally, I  must  admit,  it  has  been  the  cock,  but  I  think 
the  hen  may  do  so  too  on  occasion — rouses  himself 
from  the  pleasant  lethargy,  swims  up  to  his  mate, 
places  himself  in  front  of  her,  and  gives  a  definite, 
if  repressed,  shake  of  the  head.  It  is  an  obvious  sign 
of  his  desire  to  "have  a  bit  of  fun" — to  go  through 
with  one  of  those  bouts  of  display  and  head-shaking 
in  which  pleasurable  emotion  clearly  reaches  its  high- 
est level  in  the  birds'  lives,  as  any  one  who  has 


120  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

watched  their  habits  with  any  thoroughness  would 
agree.  It  also  acts,  by  a  simple  extension  of  func- 
tion, as  an  informative  symbol.  The  other  bird 
knows  what  is  meant;  it  raises  its  head  from  beneath 
its  wing,  gives  a  sleepy,  barely  discernible  shake — and 
replaces  the  head.  In  so  doing  it  puts  back  the  possi- 
bility of  the  ceremony  and  the  thrill  into  its  slum- 
bers; for  it  takes  two  to  make  love,  for  Grebe  as  for 
human.  The  cock  swims  off;  but  he  has  a  restless 
air,  and  in  a  minute  or  so  is  back  again,  and  the  same 
series  of  events  is  run  through.  This  may  be  re- 
peated three  or  four  times. 

If  now  another  hen  bird,  unaccompanied  by  a 
mate,  reveals  herself  to  the  eye  of  the  restless  and 
disappointed  cock,  he  will  make  for  her  and  try  the 
same  insinuating  informative  head-shake  on  her; 
and,  in  the  cases  that  I  have  seen,  she  has  responded, 
and  a  bout  of  shaking  has  begun.  Flirtation — illicit 
love,  if  you  will;  for  the  Grebe,  during  each  breed- 
ing season  at  least,  is  strictly  monogamous,  and  the 
whole  economics  of  its  family  life,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression,  are  based  on  the  co-operation  of  male  and 
female  in  incubation  and  the  feeding  and  care  of  the 
young.  On  the  other  hand,  how  natural  and  how 
human!  and  how  harmless — for  there  is  no  evidence 
that  the  pretty  thrills  of  the  head-shaking  display 
ever  lead  on  to  anything  more  serious. 

But  now  observe.  Every  time  that  I  have  seen 
such  a  flirtation  start,  it  has  always  been  interrupted. 
The  mate,  so  sleepy  before,  yet  must  have  had  one 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  121 

eye  open  all  the  time.  She  is  at  once  aroused  to 
action:  she  dives,  and  attacks  the  strange  hen  after 
the  fashion  of  Grebes,  from  below,  with  an  under- 
water thrust  of  the  sharp  beak  in  the  belly.  Whether 
the  thrust  ever  goes  home  I  do  not  know.  Generally, 
I  think,  the  offending  bird  becomes  aware  of  the  dan- 
ger just  in  time,  and,  squawking,  hastily  flaps  off. 
The  rightful  mate  emerges.  What  does  she  do  now? 
Peck  the  erring  husband?  Leave  him  in  chilly  dis- 
grace? Not  a  bit  of  it!  She  approaches  with  an 
eager  note,  and  in  a  moment  the  two  are  hard  at  it, 
shaking  their  heads;  and,  indeed,  on  such  occasions 
you  may  see  more  vigour  and  excitement  thrown  into 
the  ceremony  than  at  any  other  time. 

Again  we  exclaim,  how  human!  And  again  we 
see  to  what  a  pitch  of  complexity  the  bird's  emotional 
life  is  tuned. 

It  will  have  been  observed  that  in  the  Grebe,  whose 
chief  skill  lies  in  its  wonderful  powers  of  diving,  these 
powers  have  been  utilized  as  the  raw  material  of 
several  of  the  courtship  ceremonies.  This  pressing 
of  the  everyday  faculties  of  the  bird  into  the  service 
of  emotion,  the  elevation  and  conversion  of  its  use- 
ful powers  of  diving  and  underwater  swimming  into 
ceremonials  of  passion,  is  from  an  evolutionary  point 
of  view  natural  enough,  and  has  its  counterparts  else- 
where. So  in  the  Divers,  not  too  distant  relatives  of 
the  Grebes,  swimming  and  diving  have  their  role  in 
courtship.  Here  too  the  thrilling,  vertical  emergence 
close  to  the  mate  takes  place;  and  there  is  a  strange 


122  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

ceremony  in  which  two  or  three  birds  plough  their 
way  through  the  water  with  body  set  obliquely — 
hinder  parts  submerged,  breast  raised,  and  neck 
stretched  forward  and  head  downward  with  that 
strange  look  of  rigidity  or  tension  often  seen  in  the 
courtship  actions  of  birds. 

Or,  again,  I  once  saw  (strangely  enough  from  the 
windows  of  the  Headmaster's  house  at  Radley!)  the 
aerial  powers  of  the  Kestrel  converted  to  the  uses  of 
courtship.  The  hen  bird  was  sitting  in  a  large  bush 
beyond  the  lawn.  A  strong  wind  was  blowing,  and 
the  cock  again  and  again  beat  his  way  up  against  it, 
to  turn  w^hen  nearly  at  the  house  and  bear  down  upon 
the  bush  in  an  extremity  of  speed.  Just  when  it 
seemed  inevitable  that  he  would  knock  his  mate  off 
her  perch  and  dash  himself  and  her  into  the  branches, 
he  changed  the  angle  of  his  wings  to  shoot  vertically 
up  the  face  of  the  bush;  then  turned  and  repeated 
the  play.  Sometimes  he  came  so  near  to  her  that 
she  would  start  back,  flapping  her  wings,  as  if  really 
fearing  a  collision.  The  wind  was  so  strong — and 
blowing  away  from  me — that  I  could  not  hear  what 
cries  may  have  accompanied  the  display. 

A  friend  of  mine  who  knows  the  Welsh  mountains 
and  is  a  watcher  of  birds  as  well,  tells  me  that  he  has 
there  seen  the  Peregrine  Falcons  do  the  same  thing: 
the  same  thing — except  that  the  speed  was  perhaps 
twice  as  great,  and  the  background  a  savage  rock 
precipice  instead  of  a  Berkshire  garden. 

Not  only  the  activities  of  everyday  life,  but  also 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  123 

those  of  nest-building,  are  taken  and  used  to  build 
up  the  ceremonies  of  courtship;  but  whereas  in  the 
former  case  the  actions  are  simply  those  which  are 
most  natural  to  and  best  performed  by  the  bird,  in 
the  latter  there  is,  no  doubt,  actual  association  be- 
tween the  cerebral  centres  concerned  with  nest-build- 
ing and  with  sexual  emotion  in  general.  Thus  we  al- 
most invariably  find  the  seizing  of  nest-material  in  the 
beak  as  a  part  of  courtship,  and  this  is  often  extended 
to  a  presentation  of  the  material  to  the  mate.  This 
we  see  in  the  Grebes,  with  the  dank  weeds  of  which 
their  sodden  nest  is  built;  the  Divers  use  moss  in  the 
construction  of  theirs,  and  the  mated  birds  repair  to 
moss  banks,  where  they  nervously  pluck  the  moss, 
only  to  drop  it  again  or  throw  it  over  their  shoulder. 
Among  the  Warblers,  the  males  pluck  or  pick  up  a 
leaf  or  twig,  and  with  this  in  their  beak  hop  and  dis- 
play before  the  hens;  and  the  Peewit  plucks  fren- 
ziedly  at  grass  and  straws.  The  Adelie  Penguins,  so 
well  described  by  Dr.  Levick,  make  their  nests  of 
stones,  and  use  stones  in  their  courtship. 

A  curious,  unnatural  transference  of  object  may 
sometimes  be  seen  in  these  Penguins.  The  normal 
course  of  things  is  for  this  brave  but  comic  creature, 
having  picked  up  a  stone  in  its  beak,  to  come  up  be- 
fore another  of  opposite  sex,  and,  with  stiff  bow  and 
absurdly  outstretched  flippers,  to  deposit  it  at  the 
other's  feet.  When,  however,  there  are  men  near  the 
rookery,  the  birds  will  sometimes  in  all  solemnity 
come  up  to  them  with  their  stone  offering  and  lay 


124  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

it  at  the  feet  of  the  embarrassed  or  amused  human 
being. 

The  Adelies  do  not  nest  by  their  natural  element 
the  sea,  but  some  way  away  from  it  on  stony  slopes 
and  rock  patches;  thus  they  cannot  employ  their 
brilliant  dives  and  feats  of  swimming  in  courtship, 
but  content  themselves,  apart  from  this  presentation 
of  household  material,  with  what  Dr.  Levick  de- 
scribes as  'going  into  ecstasy" — spreading  their  flip- 
pers sideways,  raising  their  head  quite  straight  up- 
wards, and  emitting  a  low  humming  sound.  This  a 
bird  may  do  when  alone,  or  the  two  birds  of  a  pair 
may  make  a  duet  of  it.  In  any  case,  the  term  ap- 
plied to  it  by  its  observer  well  indicates  the  state  of 
emotion  which  it  suggests  and  no  doubt  expresses. 

The  depositing  of  courtship  offerings  before  men  by 
the  Penguins  shows  us  that  there  must  be  a  certain 
freedom  of  mental  connection  in  birds.  Here  an 
act,  properly  belonging  to  courtship,  is  performed  as 
the  outlet,  as  it  were,  of  another  and  unusual  emo- 
tion. The  same  is  seen  in  many  song-birds,  who, 
like  the  Sedge  Warbler,  sing  loudly  for  anger  when 
disturbed  near  their  nest;  or  in  the  Divers,  who, 
when  an  enemy  is  close  to  the  nest,  express  the  vio- 
lence of  their  emotion  by  short  sharp  dives  which 
flip  a  fountain  of  spray  into  the  air — a  type  of  dive 
also  used  as  a  sign  of  general  excitement  in  court- 
ship. 

Or,  again,  the  actions  may  be  performed  for  their 
own  sake,  as  we  may  say:  because  their  performance, 


AN    ESSAY  ON    BIRD-MIND  125 

when  the  bird  is  full  of  energy  and  outer  conditions 
are  favourable,  gives  pleasure.  The  best-known  ex- 
ample is  the  song  of  song-birds.  This,  as  Eliot  How- 
ard has  abundantly  shown,  is  in  its  origin  and  es- 
sential function  a  symbol  of  possession,  of  a  nesting 
territory  occupied  by  a  male — to  other  males  a  no- 
tice that  ''trespassers  will  be  prosecuted,"  to  females 
an  invitation  to  settle,  pair,  and  nest.  But  in  all 
song-birds,  practically  without  exception,  the  song  is 
by  no  means  confined  to  the  short  period  during 
which  it  actually  performs  these  functions,  but  is 
continued  until  the  young  are  hatched,  often  to  be 
taken  up  again  when  they  have  flown,  or  after  the 
moult,  or  even,  as  in  the  Song  Thrush,  on  almost 
any  sunny  or  warm  day  the  year  round. 

And  finally  this  leads  on  to  what  is  perhaps  the 
most  interesting  category  of  birds'  actions — those 
which  are  not  merely  sometimes  performed  for  their 
own  sake,  although  they  possess  other  and  utili- 
tarian function,  but  actually  have  no  other  origin  or 
raison  d'etre  than  to  be  performed  for  their  own  sake. 
They  represent,  in  fact,  true  play  or  sport  among  our- 
selves; and  seem  better  developed  among  birds  than 
among  mammals,  or  at  least  than  among  mammals 
below  the  monkey.  True  that  the  cat  plays  with  the 
mouse,  and  many  young  mammals,  like  kittens, 
lambs,  and  kids,  are  full  of  play;  but  the  playing  with 
the  mouse  is  more  like  the  singing  of  birds  outside  the 
mating  season,  a  transference  of  a  normal  activity  to 
the  plane  of  play;  and  the  play  of  young  animals,  as 


126  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

Groos  successfully  exerted  himself  to  show,  is  of  un- 
doubted use.  To  be  sure,  the  impulse  to  play  must 
be  felt  by  the  young  creature  as  an  exuberance  of 
emotion  and  spirits  demanding  expression;  but  a 
similar  impulse  must  be  felt  for  all  instinctive  ac- 
tions. Psychologically  and  individually,  if  you  like, 
the  action  is  performed  for  its  own  sake;  but  from 
the  standpoint  of  evolution  and  of  the  race  it  has 
been  originated,  or  at  least  perfected,  as  a  practice 
ground  for  immature  limbs  and  a  training  and  keep- 
ing ready  of  faculties  that  in  the  future  will  be  needed 
in  earnest. 

We  shall  best  see  the  difference  between  mammals' 
and  birds'  behaviour  by  giving  some  examples.  A 
very  strange  one  I  saw  in  a  pond  near  the  Egret 
rookery  in  Louisiana.  Here,  among  other  interest- 
ing birds,  were  the  Darters  or  Water  Turkeys,  cu- 
rious-looking relatives  of  the  Cormorants,  with  long, 
thin,  flexible  neck,  tiny  head,  and  sharp  beak,  who 
often  swim  with  all  the  body  submerged,  showing 
nothing  but  the  snake-like  neck  above  water.  One 
of  these  was  sitting  on  a  branch  of  swamp-cedar,  soli- 
tary and  apparently  tranquil.  But  this  tranquillity 
must  have  been  the  cloak  of  boredom.  For  sud- 
denly the  bird,  looking  restlessly  about  her  (it  was  a 
hen),  began  to  pluck  at  the  little  green  twigs  near  by. 
She  pulled  one  off  in  her  beak,  and  then,  tossing  her 
head  up,  threw  it  into  the  air,  and  with  dexterous 
twist  caught  it  again  in  her  beak  as  it  descended. 
After  five  or  six  successful  catches  she  missed  the 


AN    ESSAY   ON    BIRD-MIND  127 

twig.  A  comic  sideways  and  downward  glance  at 
the  twig,  falling  and  fallen,  in  meditative  immobility; 
and  then  another  twig  was  broken  off,  and  the  same 
game  repeated.  She  was  very  clever  at  catching;  the 
only  bird  that  I  have  seen  come  up  to  her  was  a 
Toucan  in  the  Zoo  which  could  catch  grapes  thrown 
at  apparently  any  speed.  But  then  the  Toucan  had 
been  specially  trained — and  had  the  advantage  of  a 
huge  capacity  of  bill! 

Here  again  it  might,  of  course,  be  said  that  the 
catching  of  twigs  is  a  practice  for  beak  and  eye,  and 
helps  keep  the  bird  in  training  for  the  serious  busi- 
ness of  catching  fish.  This  is  no  doubt  true;  but,  as 
regards  the  evolution  of  the  habit,  I  incline  strongly 
to  the  belief  that  it  must  be  quite  secondary — that 
the  bird,  desirous  of  occupying  its  restless  self  in  a 
satisfying  way,  fell  back  upon  a  modification  of  its 
everyday  activities,  just  as  these  are  drawn  upon  in 
other  birds  to  provide  much  of  the  raw  material  of 
courtship.  There  is  no  evidence  that  young  Darters 
play  at  catching  twigs  as  preparation  for  their  fish- 
ing, and  until  there  is  evidence  of  this  it  is  simpler 
to  think  that  the  play  habit  here,  instead  of  being 
rooted  by  the  utilitarian  dictates  of  natural  selection 
in  the  behaviour  of  the  species,  as  with  kids  or  kit- 
tens, is  a  secondary  outcome  of  leisure  and  restless- 
ness combining  to  operate  with  natural  aptitude — 
in  other  words,  true  sport,  of  however  simple  a  kind. 

The  commonest  form  of  play  in  birds  is  flying  play. 
Any  one  who  has  kept  his  eyes  open  at  the  seaside 


128  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

will  have  seen  the  Herring  Gulls  congregate  in  soar- 
ing intersecting  spirals  where  the  cliff  sends  the  wind 
upwards.  But  such  flights  are  nothing  compared 
with  those  of  other  birds.  Even  the  staid  black- 
coated  Raven  may  sometimes  be  seen  to  go  through 
a  curious  performance.  One  I  remember,  all  alone, 
flying  along  the  side  of  a  mountain  near  Oban;  but 
instead  of  progressing  in  the  conventional  way,  he 
flew  diagonally  upwards  for  a  short  distance,  then 
giving  a  special  croak  with  something  of  gusto  in  it, 
turned  almost  completely  over  on  to  his  back,  and 
descended  a  corresponding  diagonal  in  this  position. 
Then  with  a  strong  flap  of  the  wings  he  righted  him- 
self, and  so  continued  until  he  disappeared  round  the 
shoulder  of  the  hill  half  a  mile  on.  It  reminded  me 
of  a  child  who  has  learnt  some  new  little  trick  of  step 
or  dance-rhythm,  and  tries  it  out  happily  all  the  way 
home  along  the  road.  Mr.  Harold  Massingham  has 
seen  the  Ravens'  games  too,  and  set  them  down  more 
vividly  than  I  can.^  He  also  is  clear  that  they  play 
for  the  love  of  playing,  and  even  believes  that  their 
love  of  sport  has  helped  their  downfall  to  rarity  by 
rendering  them  too  easy  targets  for  the  gunner. 

Or  again,  at  the  Egret  rookery  in  Louisiana,  at 
evening  when  the  birds  returned  in  great  numbers, 
they  came  back  with  steady  wing-beats  along  an 
aerial  stratum  about  two  hundred  feet  up.  Arrived 
over  their  nesting  pond,  they  simply  let  themselves 
drop.     Their  plumes  flew  up  behind  like  a  comet's 

1  Massingham,  '23. 


AN    ESSAY  ON    BIRD-MIND  129 

tail;  they  screamed  aloud  with  excitement;  and,  not 
far  above  the  level  of  the  trees,  spread  the  wings  so 
that  they  caught  the  air  again,  and  as  result  skidded 
and  side-slipped  in  the  wildest  and  most  exciting- 
looking  curves  before  recovering  themselves  with  a 
brief  upward  glide  and  settling  carefully  on  the 
branches.  This  certainly  had  no  significance  for 
courtship;  and  I  never  saw  it  done  save  over  the 
pond  at  the  birds'  return.  It  seemed  to  be  simply  an 
entertaining  bit  of  sport  grafted  on  to  the  dull  neces- 
sity of  descending  a  couple  of  hundred  feet. 

Examples  could  be  multiplied:  Rooks  and  Crows, 
our  solemn  English  Heron,  Curlew,  Swifts,  Snipe — 
these  and  many  others  have  their  own  peculiar  flying 
sports.  What  is  clear  to  the  watcher  is  the  emo- 
tional basis  of  these  sports — a  joy  in  controlled  per- 
formance, and  excitement  in  rapidity  of  motion,  in 
all  essentials  like  the  pleasure  to  us  of  a  well-hit  ball 
at  golf,  or  the  thrill  of  a  rapid  descent  on  sledge  skis. 

For  any  one  to  whom  the  evolution  theory  is  one 
of  the  master-keys  to  animate  nature,  there  must  be 
an  unusual  interest  in  tracing  out  the  development 
of  lines  of  life  that,  like  the  birds',  have  diverged 
comparatively  early  from  the  line  which  eventually 
and  through  many  vicissitudes  led  to  Man. 

In  the  birds  as  in  the  mammals,  and  quite  sepa- 
rately in  the  two  groups,  we  see  the  evolution  not  only 
of  certain  structural  characters  such  as  division  of 
heart,  compactness  of  skeleton,  increase  of  brain-size, 
not   only   of   physiological    characters    like   warm- 


130  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

bloodedness  or  efficiency  of  circulation,  but  also  of 
various  psychical  characters.  The  power  of  profit- 
ing by  experience  becomes  greater,  as  does  that  of 
distinguishing  between  objects;  and  there  is  most 
markedly  an  increase  in  the  intensity  of  emotion.  It 
has  somehow  been  of  advantage,  direct  or  indirect,  to 
birds  to  acquire  a  greater  capacity  for  affection,  for 
jealousy,  for  joy,  for  fear,  for  curiosity.  In  birds 
the  advance  on  the  intellectual  side  has  been  less,  on 
the  emotional  side  greater:  so  that  we  can  study  in 
them  a  part  of  the  single  stream  of  life  where  emo- 
tion, untrammelled  by  much  reason,  has  the  upper 
hand. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Chance,  E.,  72.  "The  Cuckoo's  Secret."  London,  1922. 
Darwin,  C,  71.     "The  Descent  of  Man,  and  Selection  in 

Relation  to  Sex.     London,  1871. 
Groos,    K.,   '98.     "The   Play  of  Animals."    New  York, 

1898. 
Howard,    E.,    '20.     "Territory   in    Bird   Life."     London, 

1920. 
Hudson,  W.  H.,  '12.     "The  NaturaHst  in  La  Plata"  (5th 

Ed.).     London,  1912. 
Huxley,  J.  S.,  '14  and  '23.     (Courtship  in  Birds)  Proc. 

Zool.  Soc,  1914,  and  Proc.  Linn.  Soc,  1923. 
Kirkman,  F.  B.  (ed.),  '10.     "British  Bird  Book."    Lon- 
don, 1910. 
Levick,    G.    M.,    '14.     "Antarctic    Penguins."    London, 

1914. 
Massingham,   H.   J.,   '23.     "The   Ravens."    Nation  and 

AthencEum.     London,  21st  April,  1923. 
Selous,  E.,  '01.     "Bird  Watching."     London,  1901. 
Selous,  E.,  '05.    "Bird  Life  Glimpses."    London,  1905. 


IV 

SEX    BIOLOGY   AND    SEX    PSYCHOLOGY 


SEX:    THREE  WAYS 

That  body  has  for  soul  an  air-balloon 
Which  drifts  with  every  spiritual  blast, 
Doomed,  swollen  thing!  to  leak  or  burst  at  last 

Though  overmuch  aspiring  toward  the  moon. 

This  other  soul,  below  the  animal. 

Bloating  and  coating  body's  baser  parts 
With  the  manure  of  its  desires  and  arts. 

Helps  flesh  to  grow  still  more  corporeal. 

I  pray  that  I  may  still  inhabit  earth. 
Where  grass  invites  the  foot,  and  roses  smell; 
Yet  shall  I  lead  my  body  on  to  dwell 

In  the  eternal  land  of  second  birth, 

If,  nought  contemned,  each  part  of  being's  whole 

Is  taken  up  in  my  transmuting  soul. 


SEX  BIOLOGY  AND  SEX  PSYCHOLOGY  ^ 

"And  now  I  see  with  eye  serene 
The  very  pulse  of  the  machine." 

— W.  Wordsworth, 

"There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  processes  which  underlie 
all  great  work  in  art,  literature,  or  science  take  place  uncon- 
sciously, or  at  least  unwittingly.  It  is  an  interesting  question  to 
ask  whence  comes  the  energy  of  which  this  work  is  the  expression. 
There  are  two  chief  possibilities:  one,  that  it  is  derived  from  the 
instinctive  tendencies  which,  through  the  action  of  controlling 
forces,  fail  to  fmd  their  natural  outlet;  the  other,  that  the  energy 
so  arising  is  increased  in  amount  through  the  conflict  between 
controlled  and  controlling  forces." — W.   H.   Rivers. 

THE  biology  of  sex  is  a  vast  subject.  Not  only 
are  there  questions  of  sex-determination,  but 
the  whole  sexual  selection  problem  has  to  be 
considered,  together  with  the  evolutionary  function 
of  sex,  and  its  first  origin.  I  can  only  attempt,  in 
the  short  space  at  my  disposal,  to  deal  with  one  or 
two  of  the  chief  points,  and  only  in  so  far  as  they 
bear  on  questions  of  human  sex  psychology. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  we  have  to  consider  the 
evolutionary  history  of  sex.  Of  its  origin  we  can  say 
only  that  it  is  veiled  in  complete  obscurity.     Once 

1  Read  before  the  British  Society  for  Sex  Psychology,  October 
1922. 

133 


134  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

present,  however,  it  appears  to  have  a  definite  func- 
tion by  making  possible,  through  sexual  reproduc- 
tion, all  the  various  combinations  of  any  heritable 
variations  that  may  arise  in  different  individuals  of 
a  species,  and  so  conferring  greater  evolutionary  plas- 
ticity on  the  species  as  a  whole. ^ 

Primarily,  sex  implies  only  the  fusion  of  nuclei 
from  two  separate  individuals;  there  is  no  need  for 
sex  differences  to  exist  at  all.  Sex  differences,  how- 
ever, are  almost  universal  in  sexually-reproducing 
organisms,  and  represent  a  division  of  labour  be- 
tween the  active  male  cell  and  the  passive  female 
cell,  the  former  taking  over  the  task  of  uniting  the 
two,  the  latter  storing  up  nutriment  for  the  new  indi- 
vidual that  will  result  from  that  union. 

The  subsequent  history  of  sex  is,  roughly  speak- 
ing, the  history  of  its  invasion  of  more  and  more  of 
the  organization  of  its  possessors.  First  the  male  as 
a  whole,  and  not  merely  its  reproductive  cells,  tends 
to  become  organized  for  finding  the  female.  The 
female's  whole  type  of  metabolism  is  altered  to  pro- 
duce the  most  efficient  storage  of  reserve  material  in 
her  ova,  and  later  she  almost  invariably  protects  and 
nourishes  the  young  during  the  first  part  of  their  de- 
velopment, either  within  or  without  her  own  body. 
Appropriate  instincts  are  of  course  developed  in  both 
male  and  female. 

At  the  outset  there  is  enormous  waste  incurred  in 
the  liberation  of  sperms  and  ova  into  the  water,  there 

2  See  East  and  Jones,  '19. 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  135 

to  unite  as  best  they  may.  Congress  of  the  sexes 
eliminates  the  major  part  of  this  waste,  and  is  uni- 
versal above  a  certain  level.  This  is  in  itself  the 
basis  for  other  changes.  As  the  mind,  or  shall  we 
say  the  psycho-neural  organization,  becomes  more 
complex,  the  sexual  instinct  becomes  more  inter- 
woven with  the  general  emotional  state;  and  a  large 
number  of  animals  appear  not  to  mate  unless  their 
emotional  state  has  been  raised  to  a  certain  level. 
The  result  of  this  is  that  special  actions,  associated 
generally  with  bright  colours  or  striking  structures, 
with  song  or  with  scent,  come  into  being. 

The  exact  mechanism  of  the  appearance  of  these 
courtship-displays  is  a  much-vexed  point;  but  it  is 
undoubted  that  they  only  occur  in  animals  with  con- 
gress of  the  sexes  and  with  minds  above  a  certain 
level  of  complexity,  and  that  they  are  employed  in 
ceremonies  between  the  two  sexes  at  mating-time. 
There  can  subsist  no  reasonable  doubt  that  there 
exists  some  causal  connection  between  the  associated 
facts. 

An  important  point,  which  has  been  commonly 
overlooked,  is  that  such  characters  and  actions  may 
be  either  developed  in  one  sex  only,  or  in  both.  In 
a  large  number  of  birds,  such  as  egrets,  grebes,  cranes, 
and  many  others,  the  courtship-displays  are  mutual, 
and  the  characters  used  in  them  developed  to  a  simi- 
lar extent  in  both  sexes.  Such  characters  are  there- 
fore often  not  secondary  sexual  differences,  and  we 
had   best   use   Poulton's   term   epigamic   for   them. 


136  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

whether  they  are  developed  in  one  or  in  both  sexes. ^ 
The  human  species,  in  accordance  with  its  com- 
plexity and  flexibility  of  brain,  has  epigamic  char- 
acters of  both  kinds.  Some,  like  voice  and  mous- 
tache, are  different  in  the  two  sexes,  others,  such  as 
colour  of  eyes  and  lips,  the  hairlessness  of  the  body 
and  grace  of  limbs  and  carriage,  are  common  to  both. 
In  the  vertebrate  stock,  two  main  lines  of  evolu- 
tion as  regards  sexual  relationships  may  be  traced. 
The  first  is  predominant  in  mammals:  here,  in  most 
species,  the  female  will  not  receive  the  male  except 
at  fixed  times,  which  are  determined  by  a  purely 
physiological  mechanism,  the  internal  secretion  of 
the  gonad  (reproductive  organ).  Here  we  conse- 
quently find  that  the  rule  is  for  the  males  to  fight  for 
the  possession  of  the  females,  not  to  display  before 
them.  In  the  monkeys,  persumably  as  a  result  of 
a  lessened  dependence  of  mental  upon  physiological 
processes,  bright  colours  and  special  adornments  of 
various  parts  of  the  body  are  frequently  developed.^ 
In  the  birds,  on  the  other  hand,  although  here  too 
the  internal  secretion  of  the  gonad  delimits  a  period 
in  which  alone  congress  of  the  sexes  can  occur,  it 
does  not  act  for  such  a  sharply-limited  time  as  in  the 
mammal,  nor  is  it  so  intense  as  completely  to  over- 
ride other  components  of  the  mind.  As  a  result,  gen- 
eral emotional  stimulus  may  play  an  important  part 
in  inducing  readiness  to  pair,  and  we  accordingly 

3  See  Huxley,  '23. 

*See  Howard,  '20;  Carr-Saunders,  '22. 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  137 

find  display  of  some  sort,  either  by  the  male  alone 
or  by  both  sexes,  present  in  the  great  majority  of 
species.  It  is  at  least  partly  in  correlation  with  this 
that  beauty  of  voice  and  brilliant  appearance  is  far 
commoner  in  birds  than  in  mammals 

The  monkeys  represent  in  some  way  a  transitional 
stage  towards  that  seen  in  man,  in  whom  the  condi- 
tions have  come  to  resemble  those  found  in  birds, 
with  consequent  great  development  of  epigamic  char- 
acters and  actions  of  one  sort  and  another,  both 
physical  and  mental.  Thus  we  see  that  sex,  after  in- 
vading and  altering  the  conformation  of  the  body, 
finally  invades  and  alters  the  conformation  of  the 
mind. 

As  regards  the  other  great  biological  question,  of 
the  determination  of  sex,  a  very  few  words  will  suf- 
fice. In  the  first  place  I  have  no  time  to  consider 
plants  or  lower  animals.  In  almost  all  higher  ani- 
mals that  have  been  investigated,  however,  there  has 
been  found  some  hereditary  mechanism  for  ensuring 
a  rough  constancy  of  sex-ratio.  This  mechanism  re- 
sides in  the  so-called  chromosomes  of  the  nucleus. 
These  exist  for  the  most  part  in  similar  pairs  in  both 
sexes:  but  one  pair  is  dissimilar  in  one  sex.  In  mam- 
mals and  man  this  sex  is  the  male.  Man  possesses 
one  chromosome  less  than  woman.  He  possesses  only 
one  member  of  this  pair  of  special  sex-chromosomes, 
whereas  she  possesses  two.  All  her  ova  are  alike  in 
possessing  one,  whereas  half  his  sperms  possess  one, 
half  possess  none.  Therefore,  when  the  former  kind 
of  sperms  fertilize  an  ovum,  two  sex-chromosomes 


138  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

are  present  in  the  fertilized  egg  and  a  female  results; 
when  the  latter,  only  one,  and  the  offspring  is  male.^ 

Putting  the  matter  in  the  broadest  terms,  we  can 
say  that  there  is  a  different  balance  of  hereditary 
factors  in  male  and  female,  and  that  this  difference 
of  balance  dates  from  the  moment  of  fertilization, 
and  normally  determines  sex. 

Various  agencies  may  alter  the  balance.  The 
chromosomes  themselves  may  vary  in  what  we  must 
vaguely  call  their  potency;  or  external  agencies  may 
affect  it.  As  a  result,  we  sometimes  obtain  strange 
abnormal  individuals,  in  which  the  balance  has  been 
upset;  in  them  development  results  sometimes  in 
organisms  permanently  intermediate  between  male 
and  female,  sometimes  in  a  change  of  sex  at  some 
period  of  development. 

In  insects  the  chromosomes  appear  to  be  pre- 
dominant throughout  life.  In  vertebrates,  however, 
they  seem  to  play  their  chief  role  in  early  develop- 
ment, ending  by  building  up  either  a  male  or  a  fe- 
male gonad  in  the  early  embryo.  This,  once  pro- 
duced, takes  over  what  remains  of  the  task  of  sex- 
determination.  It  secretes  a  specific  internal  secre- 
tion which  in  a  male  acts  so  as  to  encourage  the 
growth  of  male  organs  and  instincts,  to  suppress  those 
of  females;  and  vice  versa  in  a  female. 

As  a  result  of  this  difference  we  find  that  castration 
in  insects,  even  followed  by  engrafting  of  a  gonad  of 
opposite  sex,  produces  no  effect  upon  other  sexual 

5  See  Goldschmidt,  '23;  Morgan,  '19;  Doncaster,  '14. 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND    SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  139 

characters;  whereas  it  exerts  a  profound  eilect  upon 
mammals  or  birds. 

As  a  second  result,  we  fmd  that  in  vertebrates  the 
gonads  form  part  of  what  has  been  called  the  chem- 
ical directorate  of  the  body — the  interlocking  system 
of  endocrine  glands,  each  of  which  is  exerting  an 
effect  upon  the  rest.  The  importance  of  this  is  seen 
in  the  experiments  of  Steinach,  Sand,  Voronoff,  and 
others,  who  have  been  able  to  obtain  a  rejuvenating 
effect  in  senile  mammals  by  increasing,  by  various 
methods,  the  amount  of  secreting  reproductive  organ 
in  the  body.^ 

To  what  then  has  our  rapid  survey  led  us?  The 
actual  origin  of  sex  is  lost  to  us  in  the  mists  of  a 
time  inconceivably  remote.  Its  preservation  once  in 
existence,  and  its  present  all-but-universal  distribu- 
tion seem  to  be  definitely  associated  with  the  bio- 
logical advantage  of  the  plasticity  which  it  confers. 
Later,  the  primary  difference  between  male  and  fe- 
male— their  power  of  producing  different  sorts  of  re- 
productive cells — leads  on  to  secondary  differences. 
These  differences  may  be  biologically  speaking  non- 
significant, mere  accidents  of  the  primary  difference. 
Or  they  may  be  in  the  nature  of  a  division  of  labour 
between  the  sexes,  this  division  of  labour  usually  con- 
cerning the  protection  of  the  embryo  or  the  care  of 
the  young,  or  more  rarely  the  preservation  of  the  in- 
dividual itself.  Or,  finally,  they  may  concern  the 
more  efficient  union  of  the  gametes;  such  differences 

6  See  Steinach,  '20;  summary  in  Lipschutz,  '19;  Voronoff,  '23. 


140  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

may  merely  affect  the  ducts  and  apertures  of  the  re- 
productive system,  and  be  more  or  less  mechanical; 
or  they  may  concern  the  use  of  these  systems,  in  the 
form  of  still  mechanical  instincts,  or  they  may  be 
concerned  in  some  way  or  other  with  the  emotional 
side  of  the  animals,  and  consist  in  characters  and  ac- 
tions which  stimulate  the  emotions  of  the  other  sex, 
characters  which  we  have  termed  epigamic. 

It  is  only  in  higher  groups  that  these  emotion- 
stimulating  sexual  characters  arise,  for  only  in  them 
has  mind  reached  a  sufficient  degree  of  perfection. 
But  even  though  detailed  study  reveals  in  a  bird  or 
a  mammal  a  mental  life  of  a  complexity  far  more 
considerable  than  the  average  man  would  imagine, 
yet  on  the  v/hole  it  is  straightforward  and  its  currents 
run  fairly  direct  from  stimulus  to  fulfilment. 

When  we  reach  man,  however,  the  whole  aspect 
of  the  matter  changes.  The  change  is  most  marked, 
naturally,  in  his  mental  organization.  Through  his 
powers  of  rapid  and  unlimited  association,  any  one 
part  of  his  experience  can  be  combined  with  any 
other;  through  his  powers  of  generalizing  and  of  giv- 
ing names  to  things,  his  experience  is  far  more  highly 
organized  than  that  of  any  animal;  through  speech 
and  writing  he  is  inheritor  of  a  continuous  tradition 
which  enormously  enlarges  his  range  of  experience. 
Again,  he  can  frame  a  purpose  and  thus  put  the  ob- 
jective of  his  actions  far  further  into  the  future  than 
can  lower  organisms. 

There  are,  however,  also  changes  of  considerable 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  141 

biological  importance  on  the  physical  side.  Man 
brings  with  him  from  his  animal  ancestors  the  en- 
docrine secretory  mechanism  of  the  reproductive  or- 
gans: but  his  life  is  not  subordinated  to  it  in  such  an 
iron-bound  way.  To  start  with  he  has  gradually  lost 
all  semblance  of  a  breeding-season.  Traces  of  it  sur- 
vive in  some  primitive  races,  but  in  civilized  com- 
munities all  one  can  say  is  that  the  number  of  births 
may  show  a  slight  seasonal  variation;  and  the  repro- 
ductive organs  are  capable  of  function  in  all  twelve 
months  of  the  year — a  state  of  affairs  known,  I  be- 
lieve, in  no  other  vertebrate,  or  at  least  in  no  wild 
species."^ 

In  the  second  place,  there  has  been  in  the  female  a 
further  emancipation  of  the  sexual  life.  In  all  other 
mammals  the  female  will  only  receive  the  male  at 
certain  well-defmed  periods,  which  in  their  turn  de- 
pend on  cyclical  changes  in  the  ovaries.  In  man  this 
restriction  has  been  overcome,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
survival  of  a  certain  degree  of  cyclical  change  in  feel- 
ing, neither  sex  is  restricted  any  longer  to  certain 
physically-determined  periods  for  the  consummation 
of  its  sexual  life.  This  is,  we  may  say,  a  triumph  of 
mind  over  matter  in  the  human  organism,  of  the 
mental  elements  of  the  sexual  life  over  the  purely 
physical  elements. 

This  is  not  to  deny  that  the  sexual  life  of  man  is 
dependent  upon  the  reproductive  hormones.  It  is 
apparently  necessary  for  proper  activation  uf  the 

7  See  Carr-Saunders,  '22,  ch.  v,  and  M.  Slopes. 


142  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

sexual  centres  in  the  brain  that  there  should  occur  a 
continuous  liberation  of  secretion  from  the  repro- 
ductive organs  into  the  blood.  Again,  the  mental 
activities  of  man  are  so  much  more  important  than 
those  of  other  forms  that  even  the  cessation  of  activ- 
ity of  the  reproductive  organs,  for  instance  in  the  fe- 
male at  the  change  of  life,  or  even  their  total  removal, 
need  not  prevent  the  continuation,  albeit  in  a  modi- 
fied form,  of  the  sexual  life  in  its  varied  indirect 
manifestations. 

Before  attempting  to  probe  the  intricacies  of  the 
mental  side  of  the  subject,  we  had  better  see  what  we 
can  learn  of  the  physical.  Let  us  first  remind  our- 
selves of  one  or  two  facts  gained  from  animal  experi- 
mentation. In  the  first  place,  in  mammals  the  ac- 
tivation of  the  sexual  instincts  of  one  or  the  other  sex 
appears  to  be  completely  or  almost  completely  under 
the  control  of  the  internal  secretions  of  the  repro- 
ductive organs.  Steinach  and  others  have  taken 
new-born  male  guinea-pigs  and  have  removed  their 
testes  and  grafted  ovaries  in  their  place.  The  result 
has  been  an  animal  almost  completely  feminized  both 
as  regards  body  and  mind.  In  some  of  the  animals 
milk  was  secreted,  and  when  this  occurred  they  would 
act  as  foster-mothers  to  new-born  guinea-pigs  of  other 
parents.  The  reverse  operation,  the  masculinization 
of  females,  was  equally  successful,  the  animals  grow- 
ing large  and  showing  all  the  instincts  of  a  normal 
male  and  none  of  those  of  a  normal  female. 

A  similar  dependence  of  behaviour  on  gonad  is 


SEX   BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  143 

seen  in  fowls.  Here  nature  makes  a  number  of  ex- 
periments, which  have  recently  been  studied  by  Dr. 
Crew  of  Edinburgh.  When  the  ovaries  of  a  hen  are 
affected  by  a  certain  type  of  tumour,  the  bird  stops 
laying,  her  comb  and  wattles  enlarge  to  the  size  of 
a  cock's,  her  spurs  grow,  she  begins  to  crow,  her  plum- 
age changes  at  the  moult  and  becomes  cock-like,  and 
finally  she  becomes  indistinguishable  from  a  male. 
Indistinguishable,  even  in  behaviour:  her  years  of 
feminine  routine  in  laying  and  brooding  are  forgot- 
ten :  the  secretion  of  the  altered  ovary  now  apparently 
resembles  that  of  a  testis  and  stimulates  centres  of 
the  brain  which  would  otherwise  have  remained  per- 
manently dormant.  She  struts  and  crows,  fights  and 
mates,  and  the  memory  of  the  previous  part  of  her 
life  is  for  all  practical  purposes  lost,  since  the  centres 
for  female  activity  are  no  longer  stimulated  at  all. 

Various  workers  have  even  experimentally  pro- 
duced a  state  of  hermaphroditism  in  mammals  by 
simultaneous  grafting  of  portions  of  testes  and 
ovary:  the  behaviour  here  oscillates  between  male 
and  female.^ 

It  is  quite  clear  from  these  and  other  facts  that  in 
higher  vertebrates  there  are  present  in  every  indi- 
vidual of  either  sex  the  nervous  connections  which 
give  the  possibility  of  either  male  or  female  be- 
haviour; but  that  normally  only  one  of  these  two 
possibilities  is  realized,  since  for  the  potentiality  of 
action  given  by  the  nervous  connections  to  become 

8  See  Lipschiitz,  '19;  Goldschmidt,  '23. 


144  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

actual  as  behaviour  it  is  necessary  for  the  nervous 
system  to  be  activated  by  the  secretion  of  one  or 
other  of  the  reproductive  organs.  Castrated  animals 
fail  to  realize  either  possibility  of  normal  sex-be- 
haviour, although  their  nervous  machinery  is  un- 
touched. 

There  are,  further,  some  facts  of  observation 
which,  even  if  they  have  not  yet  been  fully  analysed 
by  experiment,  still  throw  light  on  the  matter.  Al- 
though many  of  the  most  familiar  birds — fowls, 
pheasant,  peacock,  duck,  fmches,  and  so  forth — have 
bright-coloured  males  and  drab  females,  with  marked 
difference  of  behaviour  between  the  sexes,  there  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  many  others,  such  as  herons,  divers, 
swans,  grebes,  moorhens,  and  auks,  in  which  the  sexes 
are  alike  in  plumage  and  furthermore  show  what  may 
be  called  a  ''mutual"  courtship  in  which  both  male 
and  female  play  similar  roles.  In  this  latter  class 
it  seems  clear  that  the  secretions  of  the  male  and  fe- 
male reproductive  organs  must  be  more  alike  than  in 
the  markedly  dimorphic  species:  and  this  is  borne 
out  by  some  strange  facts  regarding  not  merely  the 
courtship  but  the  actions  concerned  with  pairing 
itself.  In  the  crested  grebe  and  the  little  grebe,  for 
example,  close  observation  has  shown  that  either 
member  of  the  pair  may  assume  the  passive  "female" 
attitude  or  the  active  ''male"  attitude  in  pairing:  and 
in  the  moorhen  we  meet  with  the  still  more  extraor- 
dinary phenomenon  of  double  pairing,  in  which  an 
act  of  pairing  with  male  and  female  in  normal  posi- 


SEX   BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  145 

tion  is  immediately  followed  by  a  second  act  in 
which  the  normal  position  is  reversed.^  it  would 
appear  in  such  cases  that  the  similarity  of  male  and 
female  internal  secretion  is  so  great  that  quite  slight 
changes  in  nervous  or  metabolic  activity  can  cause 
the  nervous  centres  for  the  opposite  sex's  mode  of 
behaviour  to  become  activated. 

In  human  beings  we  are  confronted  with  various 
grades  of  sexual  organization  and  behaviour  besides 
the  typically  feminine  and  the  typically  masculine. 
In  the  first  place  it  is  matter  of  common  knowledge 
that  many  women,  who  so  far  as  their  physical  re- 
productive capacity  goes  are  perfectly  normal,  show 
various  mental  traits  which  are  more  characteristic 
of  men,  and  vice  versa.  What  is  more,  the  '  mas- 
culinoid''  woman  (to  use  the  current  jargon)  tends 
physically  also  to  be  less  feminine,  to  have  the  fem- 
inine secondary  sexual  characteristics  in  stature, 
form  of  skeleton,  distribution  of  fat,  breasts,  etc. — 
less  strongly  developed  than  normal,  while  the 
"feminoid"  man  shows  the  reverse  tendency.^^ 

In  trying  to  analyse  these  facts  further,  we  are 
brought  up  against  new  depths  of  complication.  It 
is  becoming  ever  clearer  that  the  gonads  do  not  op- 
erate as  independent  organs,  but  in  conjunction  with 
the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  endocrine  system — 
thyroid,  pituitary,  adrenal,  and  the  rest.  In  the  first 
place,  it  seems  to  be  established  that  the  reproduc- 

»See  Selous,  '02;  Huxley,  14. 
10  See  Blair  Bell.  '16. 


146  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

tive  organs  must  be  in  some  way  activated  by  other 
ductless  glands  before  they  become  normal,  just  as 
they  in  their  turn  must  activate  the  sexual  centres 
in  the  brain.  This  phase  of  the  matter  is  being 
investigated  by  many  workers  to-day;  provisionally 
we  may  say  that  pituitary  and  adrenal  cortex  are  es- 
pecially concerned.  In  the  second  place  the  gonads, 
once  activated  and  in  normal  working  order,  react 
upon  the  other  ductless  glands.  It  thus  comes  about 
that  the  relative  proportion  or  relative  activity  of 
the  parts  of  the  whole  ductless  gland  system  is  dif- 
ferent in  male  and  female.  Blair  Bell  is  the  pro- 
tagonist of  this  view.  A  woman  is  a  woman,  he 
says,  not  merely  because  of  her  ovaries,  but  because 
of  all  her  internal  secretions,  of  her  endocrine  bal- 
ance as  a  whole. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  we  have  any  certainty  on 
the  details  of  this  subject.  It  is  clear,  however,  that 
some  such  fundamental  difference  does  exist,  and  it 
is  therefore  further  probable  that  if  a  woman  has  a 
thyroid,  say,  or  an  adrenal  which  for  some  reason 
(and  there  are  many  possible  reasons)  is  producing 
an  amount  of  secretion  abnormal  for  a  woman  but 
more  like  that  which  is  produced  by  a  man,  she  will, 
in  spite  of  her  ovaries,  be  more  masculine  in  tend- 
ency. 

I  will  content  myself  with  one  example.  The  cor- 
tex of  the  adrenal  gland,  if  active  beyond  a  certain 
measure,  assists  the  development  of  male,  prevents 
the    development    of    female,    characters.    Women 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  147 

with  adrenal  tumours  frequently  develop  moustache 
and  beard  and  other  appanages  of  the  male.  One 
presumes  that  a  slight  preponderance  of  the  adrenal 
cortex  in  the  normal  endocrine  make-up  will  lead 
to  a  less  feminine  type  of  woman  than  normal.  I 
repeat  that  we  are  but  on  the  verge  of  the  matter  and 
that  premature  speculation  is  certainly  risky  and 
probably  fallacious.  But  all  the  same,  there  is 
very  little  doubt  that  we  are  on  the  right  track,  and 
that  we  shall  have  to  search  for  the  finer  shades  of 
temperamental  difference  between  man  and  woman 
not  so  much  in  differences  in  the  quality  of  the  secre- 
tion of  testis  or  ovary  as  in  differences  of  balance  in 
what  the  Americans  call  the  ''endocrine  make-up."  ^^ 
There  is,  however,  also  the  possibility  of  difference 
in  the  quality  of  gonad  secretion,  and  of  recent  years 
Steinach  and  his  followers  have  been  claiming  that 
this  may  be  at  the  bottom  of  many  cases  of  so-called 
"perversion  of  sexual  instinct."  The  latest  claim  of 
this  school  is  that  homosexual  men  may  be  rendered 
heterosexual  in  instinct  by  removal  of  their  testes 
and  implantation  of  a  testis  from  a  sexually  normal 
person — from  a  man,  for  example,  who  is  being 
operated  on  for  cryptorchidism.  It  is  frankly  im- 
possible as  yet  to  say  whether  their  conclusions  are 
well  founded:  a  very  much  larger  series  of  cases  will 
be  necessary,  and  the  possibility  of  suggestion's  ac- 
tion must  be  eliminated.  It  is  well  to  remember, 
however,  that  there  is  no  theoretical  objection  to  the 

11  See  Vincent,  '21;  Harrow,  '23. 


148  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

possibility.  We  know  that  in  various  lower  animals, 
such  as  moths  and  flies,  the  balance  between  the 
male-  and  female-determining  factors  in  the  chro- 
mosomes may  be  altered  in  certain  crosses,  and  that 
this  altered  balance  in  the  constitution  is  reflected 
in  some  cases  in  a  state  permanently  intermediate 
between  male  and  female,  in  others  by  a  reversal  of 
sex  at  some  point  during  development.  For  various 
reasons  we  should  not  usually  expect  reversal  in 
mammals;  but  if  such  abnormal  balance  should  ex- 
ist in  the  constitution,  as  it  well  might,  we  should 
expect  a  gonad  secreting  an  abnormal,  intermediate 
secretion.  This  we  might  also  expect  as  the  result 
of  certain  accidents  of  embryonic  life,  as  actually 
happens  in  the  abnormal  female  cattle  known  to 
farmers  as  free-martins.  These  animals  are  always 
born  co-twin  to  a  male,  and  their  abnormality  is  due 
to  the  blood-systems  of  the  embryonic  membranes 
of  the  twins  having  fused,  so  that  the  secretion  of 
the  developing  male's  gonad  acts  upon  the  develop- 
ing female. 

Further  light  on  abnormally-directed  sex-instinct 
is  thrown  by  recent  analysis  of  abnormal  domestic 
animals  by  Crew.^^  \^  both  goats  and  swine  he  fmds 
that  by  far  the  commonest  form  of  sexual  abnor- 
mality is  one  in  which  the  external  appearance,  at 
least  in  youth,  is  so  nearly  female  as  to  raise  no 
question  in  the  mind  of  the  casual  observer;  about 
the  time  of  maturity,  however,  male  secondary  sex 

12  Crew,  '23. 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  149 

characters  begin  to  develop,  including  male  instincts; 
and  dissection  reveals  the  presence  of  a  double  set 
of  ducts — the  female  uterus  and  vagina,  the  male 
epididymis  and  vas  deferens,  but  only  a  single  uni- 
form reproductive  organ,  and  that  always  a  testis. 
The  simplest  explanation  (although  it  is  admittedly 
tentative)  appears  to  be  that  the  testis  has  not  been 
activated  during  embryonic  and  juvenile  life,  and 
that  therefore  until  puberty  the  animal,  though 
really  male,  has  been  physiologically  in  a  neutral 
state,  which  permits  the  growth  of  the  internal  ap- 
paratus proper  to  both  sexes.  Externally,  the  "neu- 
tral" condition  approximates  more  closely  to  the 
female  type,  and  the  animal  is  thus  first  classed  as  a 
female.  Some  other  gland  is  then  responsible  for 
the  second  activation  at  puberty,  and  this  occurs  in 
a  normal  manner. 

This  is  of  considerable  interest,  since  it  appears 
that  in  man  too  the  largest  class  of  sexually  abnormal 
individuals  are  those  whose  external  appearance  is 
almost  or  quite  feminine,  but  who  possess  male  in- 
stincts. It  is  at  least  probable  that  examination  will 
show  that  they,  too,  or  many  of  them,  will  be  of  the 
type  described  above — males  with  delayed  activa- 
tion of  testis,  a  consequent  classification  as  female 
at  birth,  and  a  girl's  upbringing,  with  male  instincts 
arising  in  the  unhappy  creature  at  puberty. 

It  is  the  fashion  nowadays  to  write  down  abnormal 
sexual  psychology  wholly  to  the  account  of  the  mmd. 
to  an  abnormal   development  with  causes  entirely 


150  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

psychological.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  if  some 
abnormal  individuals  can  be  cured  by  implantation, 
and  others  are  abnormal  owing  to  an  early  failure  of 
activation,  this  conception  falls  to  the  ground,  and 
the  Freudian  is  robbed  of  some  of  his  most  cherished 
examples.  . 

In  any  case,  the  work  on  animals  definitely  shows 
that,  unless  the  mechanism  of  activation  of  instinct 
by  gonad  secretion  has  altered  between  animal  and 
man  more  than  we  have  any  right  to  postulate  a 
priori,  the  quality  of  gonad  secretion  and  the  balance 
of  all  the  endocrines  has  to  be  taken  into  account  far 
more  than  is  done  by  the  average  psycho-analyst. 

This,  however,  is  not  to  say  that  the  genesis  of 
our  attitude  towards  sex,  our  sexual  behaviour,  and 
our  general  mental  organization  in  so  far  as  modified 
by  sex,  is  not  normally  determined  for  the  most  part 
by  purely  psychological  causes.  If  there  is  a  physi- 
cal abnormality,  this  will  react  upon  the  mental; 
but  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  the  physical  varia- 
tion will  not  take  the  individual  beyond  the  limits  of 
normality,  and  when  the  normal  physical  limits  are 
not  exceeded,  the  wide  range  of  mental  variation  still 
observable  is  to  be  ascribed  to  psychological  causes. 
In  other  words,  abnormal  sexual  behaviour  and  in- 
stinct may  be  due  either  to  physiological  or  psycho- 
logical abnormality,  and  the  latter  is  probably  the 
commoner  cause. 

I  am  not  competent  to  attempt  to  treat  of  the  vast 
and  complex  psychological  aspect  of  the  sex-problem 


SEX   BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  151 

which  the  analytical  psychologists  have  opened  up 
to  such  an  extent  within  the  last  few  years;  1  can 
only  deal  with  it  in  the  broadest  way,  and  content 
myself  rather  with  stating  than  with  solving  prob- 
lems. 

As  regards  the  place  of  sex  in  our  mental  organiza- 
tion, there  are  two  contradictory  extremes  possible. 
Either  all  ideas  connected  with  the  physical  side  of 
sex  may  be  repressed  with  great  vehemence,  and  the 
sexual  contribution  to  various  emotions  ignored  or 
dismissed,  while  a  constant  attempt  is  made  at  sub- 
limation; or  else  there  is  little  or  no  repression  be- 
yond that  necessitated  by  convention  and  custom, 
sexual  matters  are  taken  at  their  physical  face  value, 
and  sublimation  is  not  consciously  attempted  and 
exists  only  to  a  negligible  amount. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  first  alternative  repre- 
sents one  of  the  commonest  neuroses  of  modern  life, 
and  one  in  which  an  interpretation  on  principles 
made  familiar  by  psycho-analysis  is  the  most  satis- 
factory. Repression,  through  whatever  cause  initi- 
ated (and  psychologists,  I  understand,  are  coming 
more  and  more  to  recognize  that  chronic  misuse  of 
the  mind  as  well  as  single  violent  shocks  may  be 
effective),  leads  to  a  more  or  less  complete  dissocia- 
tion of  two  parts  of  the  mind,  of  which  one  only 
is  in  the  main  connected  with  the  conscious  personal 
life.  As  a  result,  curious  phenomena  are  met  with. 
There  is,  it  is  true,  a  constant  effort  necessary  to 
keep  life  a-going  with  the  aid  of  an  incomplete  men- 


152  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

tal  organization;  but  when  satisfaction  is  attained, 
its  very  rarity  brings  with  it  a  certain  glow,  an 
irradiation  of  peculiarly  pleasurable  nature.  Fur- 
thermore, dissociation  in  most  cases  is  not  complete; 
now  and  again,  and  especially  when  there  is  suc- 
cessful sublimation — in  some  people  when  in  love, 
in  others  with  religious  ecstasy,  in  others  again  with 
some  form  of  art — now  and  again  re-association  of 
the  parts  occurs,  and  there  is  an  extraordinary  sense 
of  the  irruption  of  some  vast  beneficent  force,  some 
great  extra-personal  flood  of  soul,  into  the  meagre 
stream  of  everyday  life.  The  lives  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  saints  and  ascetics,  mystics  and  poets,  abound 
with  phenomena  of  this  sort;  and  apparently  the 
sense  of  value  attaching  to  the  occasional  complete 
attainment  of  such  satisfactory  states  of  the  soul, 
combined  with  the  conscious  daily  quest  for  subli- 
mation which  is  inevitable  when  the  most  important 
part  of  the  primitive  emotions  are  repressed,  is  such 
a  vivid  experience  that  it  satisfies  the  mind  and  en- 
ables such  persons  to  carry  on,  and  to  do  work  some- 
times of  the  highest  value. 

On  the  other  hand,  men  and  women  with  this  type 
of  mental  development  naturally  tend  to  be  un- 
stable; they  cannot  be  sure  of  their  capacity,  whether 
for  routine  work  or  creative  thought  or  spiritual  ex- 
perience, from  day  to  day.  Their  mental  life  has  a 
tendency  to  wear  thin,  their  sense  of  effort  and  strug- 
gle to  increase  and  lead  to  breakdown.  It  is  in  the 
long  run  an  unsatisfactory  way  of  organizing  the 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  153 

psyche,  because  the  conscious  mind  has  less  than  it 
ought  to  have  upon  which  to  fall  back. 

The  opposite  extreme  is  equally  unsatisfactory. 
If  individuals  of  the  first  type  are  trying  to  build 
high  without  adequate  foundations,  those  of  the 
second  are  mistaking  the  foundations  for  a  complete 
building.  A  dissociation  of  a  different  type  occurs 
in  them — a  dissociation  due  to  lack  of  use,  to  a  mere 
failure  to  connect  up  that  part  of  the  mind  concerned 
with  sexual  emotion  with  a  great  many  of  the  mind's 
other  activities.  Thus  the  sexual  side  has  few  and 
lower  values  associated  with  it  than  it  might,  and 
other  possibilities  of  thought  and  feeling  and  action 
remain  as  mere  possibilities,  never  realized  in  ac- 
tuality. The  result  is  a  definitely  incomplete  per- 
sonality of  a  more  or  less  arrested  or  rudimentary 
type. 

Those  are  the  extremes:  of  course  there  are  all 
intermediates  between  them.  They  may  crop  up 
with  apparent  spontaneity,  determined  more  by  the 
hereditary  constitution  of  the  man  or  woman  than 
by  external  happenings:  or  they  may  be  mainly  or 
at  least  largely  determined  by  the  accidents  of  the 
environment  during  the  period  before  maturity. 
One  of  the  most  potent  factors  in  the  environment 
will  be  the  attitude  of  the  parents  towards  sexual 
matters.  On  the  one  hand  they  may  adopt  the  com- 
mon, horror-stricken  attitude  towards  sex,  hushing 
it  up,  making  it  clear  to  the  sensitive  mind  of  child- 
hood that  there  is  something  thoroughly  bad  about 


154  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

it,  and  so  laying  the  best  possible  foundations  for 
future  repression.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may 
openly  adopt  the  psycho-analytic  view  as  to  the  role 
of  sex  in  the  development  of  mind,  may  further  be- 
lieve that  the  fullest  analysis  and  self-knowledge  is 
always  desirable,  and  may  accordingly  be  pointing 
out  to  the  child  interpretations  of  its  actions  and 
sayings  in  terms  of  sex,  familiarizing  it  with  sex  from 
the  outset,  not  merely  not  discouraging  but  actually 
encouraging  reference  to  sexual  matters.  This  will 
tend,  ceteris  paribus,  to  the  development  of  a  mind 
in  which  many  of  the  more  complex  mental  opera- 
tions will  not  usually  persist  because  the  subject  will 
be  continually  unbuilding  them  into  their  constit- 
uent parts,  of  which  sex  will  be  the  most  unvarying 
and  important. 

Both  these  types  are  to  my  judgment  obviously 
unsatisfactory.  The  ideal  organization  of  the  mind 
must  be  one  in  which  first  there  is  a  minimum  of 
waste  of  energy,  secondly  a  maximum  realization  of 
potentiality.  The  operations  of  mind  may  further 
be  thought  of  from  two  different  angles — a  subserv- 
ing the  biological  needs  of  the  organism,  or  as  ends 
in  themselves.  From  the  first  point  of  view,  thought 
is  action  in  posse:  efficiency  and  full  utilization  of 
energy  are  here  the  requirements,  and  it  is  obvious 
that  any  method  which  even  partially  separates  one 
part  of  the  mental  organization  from  the  rest  must 
be  a  poor  one,  that  a  refusal  to  face  any  portion  of 
reality,  such  as,  in  our  special  case,  the  physical  side 


I 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  155 

of  sex,  must  put  the  organism  at  a  disadvantage  in 
a  world  in  which  that  portion  of  reality  plays,  as  it 
obviously  does,  an  important  role. 

The  correct  type  of  organization  is  one  of  the 
type  which  has  been  developed  over  and  over  again 
in  the  course  of  evolution,  for  different  functions:  it 
is  the  hierarchical  one,  in  which  some  parts  are 
dominant,  others  subordinate,  the  dominant  parts 
helpless  without  the  subordinate,  the  subordinate 
different,  through  the  fact  of  their  subordination, 
from  what  they  would  otherwise  have  been,  doing 
most  of  the  hard  work,  but  under  the  guidance  of 
the  dominant.  Only  in  this  way  is  a  unitary  organ- 
ization arrived  at  in  which  there  is  the  minimum  of 
waste,  of  antagonism  between  the  parts. 

The  psycho-analysts  have,  by  analysing  the 
pathology  of  mind,  shown  us  how  waste  of  energy 
may  arise  in  particular  cases,  and  so  make  it  easier 
for  us  to  avoid  it  in  general. 

One  may  recognize  the  merits  of  Freud  as  an  in- 
vestigator without  accepting  all  or  even  the  majority 
of  his  conclusions.  As  the  late  W.  M.  Rivers  pointed 
out,  Freud  will  always  be  remembered  in  the  history 
of  psychology  because  he  introduced  new  ideas  and 
new  methods  into  the  science.  Previous  workers 
had  discovered  the  realm  of  the  subconscious;  but 
they  had  not  discovered  the  real  nature  of  its  rela- 
tion to  the  rest  of  the  mental  organization.  Freud 
pointed  out  that  there  was  often  a  biological  value 
attached  to  the  power  of  forgetting  as  well  as  to  that 


156  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

of  remembering,  and  that  in  any  case  in  most  of  us 
a  large  amount  of  experience  is  rendered  unconscious 
by  suppression,  or  an  attempt  made  to  force  it  into 
the  unconscious  by  repression.  He  and  his  followers 
and  other  schools  of  psychologists  have  pointed  out 
the  importance  of  unresolved  conflicts  in  determin- 
ing thought  and  behaviour,  and  have  made  it  clear 
that  in  the  ordinary  civilized  community  of  to-day  a 
large  proportion  of  those  conflicts  arise  out  of  diffi- 
culties connected  with  the  sex-instinct.  And,  even 
if  we  reject  the  extreme  claims  made  by  many  Freud- 
ians, we  must  admit  that  psycho-analysis  has  shown 
that  many  cases  of  actual  perversion  of  instinct  may 
be  cured  by  anal>1:ic  methods,  and  that  sex  occupies 
a  very  much  larger  space  in  the  mind  than  was  pre- 
viously supposed.  It  had  not  been  previously  sup- 
posed, because  of  the  fact  that  it  tends  to  appear  in 
consciousness  in  disguised  form — either  sublimated 
and  thus  intertwined  with  other  emotions  and  in- 
stincts or  with  unusual  objects,  or  else  rationalized 
as  something  else,  or  kept  below  the  surface  of  con- 
sciousness as  an  unfulfilled  wish;  and  because  there 
is  a  resistance  in  most  of  us  to  recognizing  its  im- 
portance. 

This  revolution  in  our  thought  has  proved  very 
unpalatable  to  many.  In  just  the  same  way  as  a 
large  proportion  of  Darwin's  opponents  opposed  him 
because  they  believed  that  to  accept  man's  simian 
origin  was  a  repulsive  degradation,  so  many  of  the 
opponents  of  psycho-analysis  oppose  it  because  they 


SEX   BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  157 

believe  that  to  ascribe  this  huge  role  to  sex  in  the 
genesis  of  our  psyche  is  a  repulsive  degradation. 

To  my  mind  there  are  two  very  general  questions 
which  the  student  of  human  sex  psychology  now 
has  to  face,  if  he  takes  not  necessarily  the  whole  but 
the  central  theses  of  psycho-analysis,  however  much 
pruned,  as  proven.  The  first  is  this:  granted  that 
sex  does  play  such  a  large  part,  especially  in  early 
years,  in  the  genesis  of  our  mental  organization,  is 
it  desirable  that  the  average  adult  or  adolescent 
should,  by  analysis,  be  given  full  self-knowledge  on 
the  subject? 

The  second  is  this:  granted  that  sex  does  penetrate 
into  more  corners  of  mind  in  man  than  in  lower 
organisms,  is  this  really  a  regrettable  thing,  or  can 
we  fmd  any  grounds  for  believing  it  to  be  desirable 
or  biologically  progressive? 

To  answer  this  we  shall  have  to  go  back  a  little 
to  first  principles,  and  consider,  however  briefly,  cer- 
tain facts  as  to  the  march  of  evolution. 

Evolution  is  essentially  progressive.  It  proceeds 
on  the  whole  in  a  certain  direction,  and  that  direc- 
tion is  on  the  whole  towards  a  realization  of  what 
seems  to  us  to  have  positive  value.  The  direction, 
however,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  most  striking  when 
we  consider  the  maximum  level  attained,  much  less 
so  when  we  consider  the  average,  not  at  all  when 
we  look  at  the  minimum. 

The  method  or  mechanism  of  progress  may  dider 
in  different  types,  and  it  does  differ  in  man  from 


158  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

that  which  is  found  in  other  mammals.  In  most 
higher  animals  progress  is  brought  about  chiefly  by 
natural  selection  operating  upon  individuals,  al- 
though in  a  few  forms  selection  operates  chiefly  upon 
groups  of  communities:  in  both  cases  the  changes  in 
the  inherited  constitution  of  the  species  are  the  im- 
portant changes.  In  man,  however,  in  all  except 
the  very  early  stages  of  his  development,  changes  in 
inherited  constitution  have  been  small  and  unim- 
portant, and  the  chief  changes  of  evolutionary  signif- 
icance have  been  those  in  tradition;  selection  among 
individuals  has  been  of  relatively  little  importance, 
and  selection  has  fallen  mainly  upon  groups  and, 
to  an  ever-increasing  extent,  upon  their  ideas  and 
traditions. 

In  spite  of  differences  in  method  as  between  dif- 
ferent types  of  organism,  the  tendency  has  been  in 
the  same  direction — towards  a  possibility  of  greater 
control,  greater  independence,  greater  complexity, 
and  greater  regulation  or  harmony. 

Looked  at  from  the  evolutionary  point  of  view, 
the  moving,  dynamic  point  of  view,  we  have  to  think 
of  human  sex-psychology  in  yet  another  way.  So 
far  we  have  been  treating  it  as  what  it  is;  now  we 
must  think  of  what  it  may  become. 

The  general  rule  in  evolution — the  natural  and 
obvious  rule — is  that  acquisitions  are  not  thrown 
away  when  change  occurs,  but  built  upon,  utilized 
for  some  new  function.  The  endostyle  of  the  lowest 
chordates,  part  of  a  very  primitive  type  of  feeding 


SEX   BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  159 

mechanism,  was  converted,  when  they  changed  their 
mode  of  life,  into  the  thyroid  gland:  the  parathyroids 
develop  from  the  remains  of  the  gill-apparatus  when 
gills  are  discarded  for  lungs:  the  secondary  sexual 
differences  which  originate  as  accidental  consequence 
of  the  primary  difference  between  the  sexes  are,  over 
and  over  again,  elaborated  into  special  characters 
employed  in  courtship. 

So  the  sex-instinct  and  its  associated  emotion,  at 
first  simply  one  among  a  number  of  separate  and 
scarcely-correlated  instincts,  has  in  man  become  the 
basis  for  numerous  new  mental  functions.  It  can 
enter  into  the  composition  of  various  emotions, 
though  its  character  is  often  disguised  and  its  pres- 
ence often  undetected.  It  contributes  to  some  of  the 
most  exalted  states  of  mind  which  we  can  experience. 
The  sexual  relationship,  which  in  lower  animals  in- 
volves neither  contact  nor  even  propinquity,  but 
simply  simultaneous  discharge  of  reproductive  cells, 
and  in  most  animals  is  a  purely  temporary  affair, 
is  very  different  in  man.  Even  in  those  birds  and 
non-human  mammals  in  which  the  sexes  remain 
associated  for  long  periods  or  permanently,  the 
different  departments  of  life  are  more  in  water-tight 
compartments,  the  psychical  activity  is  subordinate 
to  the  physiological:  in  man  the  physiological  side, 
though  of  course  still  basic  and  necessary,  is  more — 
and  can  be  much  more — subordinate  to  the  psycho- 
logical, and  all  parts  of  the  mental  life  interpenetrate 
to  a  much  greater  extent;  so  that  the  sex-instinct 


160  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

may  become  transformed  by  a  psychological  process 
roughly  analogous  to  the  transformation  of  physical 
energy,  and  reappear  in  altered  guise  in  various  other 
activities  of  mind. 

If  we  look  at  the  matter  broadly,  we  see  that  man 
is  in  a  period  of  evolutionary  transition  as  regards 
sex.  We  found  previously  that  the  greatest  change 
connected  with  sex  which  has  been  made  in  the 
evolution  of  higher  animals  was  the  change  by  which 
there  was  evolved  a  brain  and  mind  with  associated 
sense-organs  in  which  accurate  perception  of  objects 
at  a  distance  could  occur,  a  mechanism  which  really 
dominated  the  working  of  the  organism  as  a  whole, 
and  in  which  memory  and  emotion  seemed  to  play  an 
important  part.  Once  this  happened,  the  sex-instinct 
could  be  linked  up  with  general  emotional  reactions 
and  connected  with  external  objects  capable  of  in- 
ducing emotion. 

What  was  the  result?  That  in  every  group 
possessing  such  a  type  of  mind,  epigamic  characters 
of  a  beautiful  or  striking  or  bizarre  nature  were 
evolved.  This  first  linking-up  of  sex  with  mind  pro- 
duced, eventually,  a  large  proportion  of  the  beauty 
of  the  organic  world.  It  coloured  and  adorned  not 
only  many  a  bird,  but  even  newts  and  fish  and  spi- 
ders; it  helped  elicit  song  and  music  from  mere 
sounds  and  noises;  it  moulded  our  own  bodies, 
coloured  our  lips  and  eyes,  and  everywhere  helped  in 
adding  grace  to  mere  serviceableness;  it  saw  to  it 
that,  as  St.  Paul  puts  it,  "even  our  uncomely  parts 


SEX   BIOLOGY  AND   SEX   PSYCHOLOGY  161 

have  an  abundant  comeliness."  But,  as  we  have 
just  pointed  out,  its  connection  with  the  mind's 
higher  centres  was  in  all  pre-human  forms  still  tem- 
porary, under  the  control  of  cyclical  physiological 
changes,  and  the  mind  as  a  whole  was  still  con- 
structed in  compartments,  so  that  different  instincts 
and  different  experiences  did  not  necessarily  or  even 
usually  come  in  contact  with  each  other. 

The  next  great  change  is  being  made  now;  it  con- 
cerns a  further  development  of  mind  and  a  conse- 
quent fresh  mode  of  connection  of  sex  with  mental 
life.  As  we  have  outlined  above,  this  change  in 
mind  consists  in  the  tendency  towards  uniting  the 
different  parts  of  the  psyche,  both  those  portions 
given  by  heredity  and  the  modification  due  to  ex- 
perience, into  a  single  organic  whole,  and  in  making 
this  whole  more  dominant  over  the  other  aspects  of 
the  organism;  the  consequent  tendency  as  regards 
the  relationship  of  sex  to  the  organism  is  towards 
taking  it  out  of  its  single  groove,  its  water-tight 
compartment,  and  bringing  it  into  more  complete 
and  more  permanent  union  with  the  rest  of  the  mind. 
Furthermore,  the  main  change  and  the  consequent 
change  as  regards  sex  are  both  of  a  biologically  pro- 
gressive nature. 

We  are  now,  I  think,  owing  to  our  taking  this 
broad  biological  view,  in  a  better  position  to  make 
up  our  minds  as  to  some  at  least  of  the  difficulties 
which  beset  us  to-day  in  any  attempt  to  deal  squarely 
with  the  relation  of  sex  to  human  life.     It  is  true 


162  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

that  some  of  these  difficulties  are  permanent.  The 
synthesis  of  a  unitary  and  comprehensive  mental 
organization  can  never  be  an  easy  task.  The  child 
is  endowed  with  a  number  of  instinctive  tendencies 
which,  as  in  animals,  each  tend  whenever  aroused  to 
occupy  the  whole  mental  field  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others,  producing  divergence  and  lack  of  co-ordina- 
tion instead  of  unity  and  organization.  Then  again, 
the  experience  of  any  one  individual  may  be  highly 
unusual.  For  the  child  to  co-ordinate  his  various 
tendencies  with  each  other  and  with  his  own  expe- 
rience and  with  the  tradition  and  experience  of  the 
race  must  always  be  difficult,  and  there  will  always 
be  some  failures. 

There  is  another  permanent  difficulty,  a  biological 
disharmony,  in  the  fact  that  sexual  maturity  in  man 
comes  several  years  before  general  maturity,  and 
that  again,  at  least  in  any  state  of  civilization  which 
we  can  at  present  imagine  as  practicable,  several 
years  before  the  economic  possibility  of  marriage. 
There  will  always  be  crises  of  adolescence;  there  will 
always  be  suffering  and  difficulty  due  to  this  dis- 
harmony in  time  between  the  origin  of  the  full  sexual 
instinct  and  the  possibility  of  its  proper  satisfaction. 

However,  granted  these  permanent  difficulties, 
there  are  others  which  may  be  reduced  or  made  to 
disappear.  Granted  that  we  have  to  organize  our 
minds  into  a  whole,  we  can  see  the  general  plan  on 
which  we  should  aim  at  organizing  it.  We  must 
aim  first  at  having  no  barriers  between   different 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  163 

parts  of  the  mind.  Every  attempt  must  be  made  in 
the  education  of  children  to  prevent  there  being  a 
stigma  attached  to  one  whole  section  of  mental  life, 
and  so  to  avoid  its  partial  or  total  dissociation  from 
the  rest.  On  the  other  hand,  the  absence  of  bar- 
riers does  not  imply  the  absence  of  any  relation  of 
subordination  or  dominance  of  one  part  to  another. 
One  of  the  most  important  biological  generalizations 
is  that  progressive  evolution  is  accompanied  by  the 
rise  of  one  part  to  dominance  and,  whenever  there 
are  many  parts  to  be  considered,  by  the  arrangement 
of  the  rest  in  some  form  of  hierarchy,  each  part  be- 
ing subordinate  to  one  above,  dominant  to  one  be- 
low. It  is  such  a  hierarchy  which  w^e  must  try  to 
construct  in  our  mental  organization. 

It  is  obviously  impossible  here  to  go  into  the  whole 
question  of  values  and  ideals,  but  it  is  clear  to  any 
one  who  has  given  the  briefest  reflection  to  the  sub- 
ject that  there  are  certain  values,  aesthetic,  intel- 
lectual, and  moral,  which  are  ultimate  for  the  mind  of 
man,  certain  ideals — of  truth  and  honesty,  intellec- 
tual satisfaction,  righteousness  or  at  least  freedom 
from  the  sense  of  sin  or  guilt,  completeness  and  self- 
realization,  unselfishness  and  serviceableness  and 
so  forth — which  (though  perhaps  in  varying  propor- 
tions) are  by  common  consent  accepted  as  the  high- 
est: and  further  that  the  greater  the  attempt  to 
deepen  and  broaden  these,  to  increase  their  mental 
intensity  and  to  widen  their  range  and  association, 
the  more  they  tend  to  emerge  into  something  in- 


164  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

creasingly  unitary,  in  which  it  is  seen  that  honesty 
is  also  beautiful  and  useful,  that  intellectual  satis- 
faction is  in  the  long  run  serviceable  to  the  com- 
munity, that  unselfishness  to  be  effective  requires 
thought  and  will  besides  mere  altruistic  emotion, 
that  one  of  the  greatest  aids  to  any  genuine  righteous- 
ness is  an  aeesthetic  love  of  beautiful  things  that  pre- 
vents our  doing  ugly  things,  and  so  ad  infinitum. 

The  proper  way,  then,  to  build  the  sex  instinct  into 
the  mental  system  is  not  to  have  its  stimulation  cause 
a  merely  physiological  and  uninhibited  desire  for  its 
gratification,  nor  to  bring  about  a  forcible  repression 
and  an  attempt  to  break  connection  between  it  and 
the  other  parts  of  the  mind. 

The  desirable  method  is  to  have  free  connection 
between  it  and  the  dominant  ideas,  so  that  its  stimu- 
lation brings  about  a  stimulation  of  them  too.  This 
leads,  as  a  matter  of  experience,  to  the  incorporation 
of  the  sexual  emotion  in  the  dominant  ideas,  or  we 
had  better  say  an  interpenetration  of  one  with  the 
other,  so  that  the  sexual  emotion  is  no  longer  simply 
sexual  emotion,  but  is  become  part  of  something  very 
much  larger  and  very  much  better.  Let  the  great 
writers  say  in  their  few  words  what  I  should  say 
much  worse  in  many. 

Wordsworth's  "sense  sublime  of  something  far 
more  deeply  interfused"  opens  a  window  on  to  the 
general  process  of  sublimation:  and  Blake's  descrip- 
tion of  the  physical  union  of  the  sexes  as  "that  .  .  . 
on  which  the  soul  expands  her  wing"  is  an  epitome 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  165 

of  a  particular  aspect  of  our  particular  problem.  Or 
again,  when  St.  Paul  says  "Am  I  not  free?"  or  "All 
things  are  lawful  unto  me,"  he  means  that  by  sub- 
ordinating all  sides  of  himself  to  his  highest  ideals, 
he  has  reached  that  state  in  which  what  he  does  is 
right  to  him  because  he  only  wants  to  do  what  is 
right.  (True  that,  as  he  himself  confesses,  he  is  not 
always  able  to  keep  in  that  state:  but  when  he  is  in 
it,  he  attains  that  complete  freedom  which  is  the  sub- 
ordination of  lower  to  higher  desire.) 

Physiologically  speaking,  the  activation  of  the  sex 
instinct,  when  the  connection  is  made  in  this  way, 
arouses  the  higher  centres,  and  these  react  upon  the 
centres  connected  with  the  sex  instinct,  modifying 
their  mode  of  action.  The  nett  result  is  thus  that 
both  act  simultaneously  to  produce  a  single  whole  of 
a  new  type.  Processes  of  this  nature  are  common 
in  the  nervous  system,  as  has  been  shown  for  instance 
by  Hughlings  Jackson,  Head,  and  Rivers. ^^ 

Thus  the  higher,  dominant  parts  of  the  mind  are 
strengthened  by  their  connection  with  such  lower 
parts  as  the  simple  sex  instinct,  and  the  sex  instinct 
is  able  to  play  a  role  in  any  operation  of  the  mind, 
however  exalted,  in  which  emotion  is  in  any  way 
concerned.  Rivers  believes  that  the  actual  conflict 
between  controlled  and  controlling  parts  of  the  mind 
is  a  potent  generator  of  mental  "energy" ;  and  adds, 
"whatever  be  the  source  of  the  energy,  however,  we 
can  be  confident  that  by  the  process  of  sublimation 

13  See  Rivers,  '20,  chs.  iv,  xviii. 


166  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

the  lives  upon  which  it  is  expended  take  a  special 
course,  and  in  such  case  it  is  not  easy  to  place  any 
limit  to  its  activity.  We  do  not  know  how  high  the 
goal  that  it  may  reach."  ^* 

The  change  is  thus  on  the  one  side  from  the  rela- 
tive independence  of  the  sex  instinct  towards  its  sub- 
ordination to  a  position  in  a  hierarchy  of  mental 
process,  but  on  the  other  from  a  rigid  limitation  of 
its  scope  towards  a  greater  universality  by  establish- 
ing connections  with  all  other  parts  of  the  mind. 
Further,  there  is  also  a  change  towards  greater  domi- 
nance and  "self-determination"  of  the  mental  as 
against  the  physical. 

A  great  many  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  us, 
both  as  individuals  and  as  communities,  come  from 
the  fact  that  both  these  changes  are  only  in  process 
of  being  made,  and  are  (even  approximately)  com- 
plete only  in  a  very  small  number  of  persons. 

Lack  of  restraint  is  failure  to  construct  a  properly- 
working  hierarchy.  That  is  a  very  simple  example. 
Less  easy  to  analyse  but  equally  vicious,  are  the 
innumerable  cases  in  which  some  sort  of  equilibrium 
is  only  attained  not  by  a  free  interaction  of  dominant 
and  subordinate  parts,  but  by  repression.  Conflicts 
arise,  which  persist,  either  in  an  open  form  or  in  the 
subterranean  regions  of  the  unconscious.  In  either 
case  they  tend  to  be  projected  by  the  subject  into 
his  ideas  of  other  people.  This  projection,  or  inter- 
pretation of  external  reality  in  terms  of  one's  self,  is 

1*  Rivers,  '20,  p.  158. 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  167 

a  curious  and  almost  universal  attribute  of  the  hu- 
man mind.  The  most  familiar  example  is  perhaps 
the  anthropomorphism  which  in  religion  after  re- 
ligion has  invested  the  powers  of  the  universe  with 
human  form,  human  mental  process,  human  personal- 
ity— or  at  least  with  form,  mind,  and  personality 
similar  to  those  of  man;  while  a  very  simple  case  is 
that  in  which  certain  neurotic  types  project  their  de- 
pression so  as  to  colour  everything  that  comes  into 
their  cognizance  a  gloomy  black. 

In  the  sphere  of  sex  this  process  is,  alas,  most 
potently  at  work.  The  man  in  whom  the  sexual  in- 
stinct still  lives  a  more  or  less  independent,  unin- 
hibited life  of  its  own,  tends — unless  he  has  special 
evidence  to  the  contrary,  and  often  even  then — to 
interpret  the  behaviour  and  the  minds  of  others  in 
the  terms  familiar  to  himself,  and  to  suppose  that 
they  too  must  be  stopped  by  the  fear  of  punishment 
or  of  loss  of  caste  if  they  are  not  to  commit  excesses. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  in  whom  there  is  a  con- 
stant conflict  with  a  sexual  origin  project  it  here, 
there,  and  everywhere  into  the  breasts  of  those  they 
know,  and  interpret  others'  motives  in  terms  of  their 
own  repressed  wishes. 

Furthermore,  most  of  our  existing  laws  and  cus- 
toms are  based  on  a  state  of  society  in  which  the 
changes  to  which  we  have  referred  had  not  pro- 
gressed as  far  as  they  have  to-day,  and  man's  psy- 
chology was  a  little  less  removed  from  that  of  other 
mammals. 

The  result  is  that  those  who  attempt  the  com- 


168  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

plete  emancipation  possible  to  a  properly-organized 
mind  are  confronted  first  by  the  lag  of  our  institu- 
tions and  traditions,  and  secondly  by  the  unconcealed 
suspicion  of  all  those — and  they  are  as  yet  the  large 
majority — in  which  the  conflicts  arising  out  of  sex 
are  unresolved.  It  is  from  the  sum  of  those  con- 
flicts that  the  spirit  prevalent  with  regard  to  sex 
to-day  derives  its  character — shocked  and  shamefaced 
as  regards  one's  own  sexual  life,  vindictive  and 
grudging  as  regards  the  difficulties  of  others.  The 
bulk  of  men  and  women  cannot  treat  sexual  prob- 
lems in  a  scientific  spirit,  because  of  the  store  of  bot- 
tled-up  emotion  in  the  wrong  place  that  they  have 
laid  up  for  themselves  by  their  failure  to  come  to 
proper  terms  with  their  sexual  instincts.  The  soul 
should  grow  to  deserve  the  words  Crashaw  wrote  of 
St.  Theresa — "O  thou  undaunted  daughter  of  de- 
sires!" But  this  the  soul  of  such  disharmonic  beings 
can  never  do. 

This  brings  us  to  our  other  pressing  question. 
Should  the  results  of  psycho-analytic  methods,  the 
knowledge  that  the  sex  instinct  is  fundamental  and 
is  interwoven  into  the  roots  of  the  highest  spiritual 
activities — should  the  inculcation  and  demonstration 
of  this  be  part  of  education?  Some  would  say  yes, 
and  would  argue  that  to  know  oneself  is  essential  to  a 
proper  realization  of  one's  capacities.  Personally  I 
am  extremely  doubtful  of  the  correctness  of  this  an- 
swer.    Knowledge  of  the  processes  of  digestion  is 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  169 

not  necessary  to  digest  well — so  long  as  we  go  on  di- 
gesting well:  it  is  only  necessary  when  we  digest 
badly.  In  that  case  the  processes  involved  are  auto- 
matic: but  even  in  processes  which  require  a  great 
deal  of  learning,  we  find  a  similar  state  of  affairs.  A 
man  can  become  expert  at,  say,  a  game  requiring  the 
most  delicate  adjustments  of  hand  and  eye  without 
analysing  the  processes  he  employs,  but  by  practis- 
ing them  as  finished  articles,  so  to  speak;  and  it  is 
equally  obvious  that  Shakespeare  and  Shelley  and 
Blake  and  other  great  writers  produced  their  works 
without  the  least  analytical  knowledge  of  the  obscure 
and  rather  unpleasant  processes  which,  if  we  are  to 
believe  the  critics  who  psycho-analyse  dead  authors 
in  the  pages  of  Freudian  journals,  were  "really"  at 
work  below  the  surface.  Analysis  constitutes  a  se- 
rious surgical  operation  for  the  mind,  and,  as  one  of 
the  leading  Austrian  psycho-analysts  has  recently 
said,  we  do  not  want  to  perform  this  operation  on 
healthy  people  any  more  than  we  want  to  open  their 
abdomens  merely  for  the  sake  of  seeing  that  their 
viscera  are  normal. 

If  matters  concerning  sex  are  treated  properly  dur- 
ing a  child's  development  and  education,  the  neces- 
sity for  psycho-analysis  and  any  extension  of  ana- 
lytic knowledge  of  the  foundations  of  one's  own  mind 
that  it  may  bring  is  done  away  with.  If  it  can  be 
ensured  that  there  is  no  obvious  avoidance  of  the 
subject  leading  to  repression  in  the  child's  mind, 
and  on  the  other  hand  no  undue  prominence  given  to 


170  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

it  SO  that  a  morbid  curiosity  is  aroused,  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  conflicts  that  now  arise  could  be 
avoided.  The  other  necessity  is  that  there  should  be 
provision  for  sublimation — in  art  or  music,  in  social 
service  or  in  one's  own  work,  in  religion,  or,  in  modi- 
fied form,  in  sport  or  romance. 

It  is  perfectly  possible,  in  such  case,  for  mental 
development  to  proceed  naturally  and  comparatively 
smoothly  towards  a  unified  organization  of  the  type 
of  which  we  have  spoken.  Psycho-analysis  would 
not  help  a  boy  or  girl  developing  in  such  a  way,  any 
more  than  would  a  study  of  all  the  characters  we 
have  inherited  from  our  simian  forefathers  help  us  to 
realize  our  specifically  human  possibilities.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  the  intellectual  desire  to  know 
things  for  their  own  sake  is  aroused,  as  it  is  in  most 
boys  and  girls  between  the  ages  of  about  fourteen 
and  twenty,  then  just  as  it  is  good,  in  order  to  get 
a  true  picture  of  the  universe,  for  them  to  know  and 
be  presented  with  the  evidence  for  man's  evolution 
from  lower  forms,  so  it  is  good  for  the  same  reason 
to  give  them  an  account  of  their  psychological  organ- 
ization, including  evidence  for  the  role  which  sex 
plays  in  the  genesis  of  higher  mental  activities — 
without,  however,  any  necessity  for  psychological 
experiments  in  burrowing  into  their  own  foundations. 
In  this  case  such  knowledge  would  have  the  additional 
value  of  putting  them  on  their  guard  against  allow- 
ing themselves  to  be  prejudiced  by  their  own  incom- 
pletely-adjusted conflicts. 


SEX   BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  171 

We  are  all  of  us  too  prone  to  think  that  a  phenom- 
enon is  somehow  "explained,"  or  interpreted  better, 
by  analysing  it  into  its  component  parts  or  discover- 
ing its  origin  than  by  studying  it  in  and  for  it- 
self. 

The  new  type  of  mental  organization  acquired  by 
man  permits  of  wholly  new  types  of  mental  process, 
of  a  complexity  as  far  exceeding  those  that  we  deduce 
in  brutes  as  does  the  physical  organism  of  a  dog  or 
an  ant  that  of  a  polyp  or  a  protozoan:  and  it  is  part 
of  our  business  to  realize  those  possibilities  to  the 
fullest  extent. 

To  sum  up,  then,  biological  investigation  in  the 
first  place  shows  us  how  certain  abnormalities  of  sex- 
ual psychology  may  be  more  easily  interpreted  as 
caused  by  comparatively  simple  physical  abnormali- 
ties than  by  the  more  complex  distortions  of  psycho- 
logical origin  dealt  with  by  psycho-analysis.  In  the 
second  place,  by  giving  us  a  broader  apergu  than  can 
otherwise  be  gained  over  the  evolution  of  sex  and  the 
direction  visible  in  biological  history,  it  clears  up 
to  a  certain  extent  some  of  the  difficulties  which  the 
discoveries  of  the  psycho-analytic  school  have  ren- 
dered acute. 

If  the  changes  in  the  relation  of  the  sex  instinct  to 
the  rest  of  the  mind,  which  I  have  spoken  of  above 
as  being  in  operation  at  present,  should  one  day 
progress  so  far  as  to  be  more  or  less  carried  through 
in  a  majority,  or  in  a  dominant  section  of  the  popukn- 
tion,  the  whole  outlook  of  society  towards  the  sex 


172  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

problem  would  be  changed,  and  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions and  customs  connected  with  it  completely  re- 
modelled. 

The  most  pressing  task  of  those  who  are  thinking 
over  the  problem  of  sex  in  human  life  will  often  be 
the  relief  of  suffering  and  the  removal  of  abuses: 
but  the  broader  view  should  never  be  forgotten,  and 
every  attempt  should  be  made  to  think  constructively 
with  a  view  to  realizing  the  enormous  possibilities 
that  such  a  change  would  bring  about. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Blair  Bell,  '16.     "The  Sex  Complex."    London,  1916. 

Carr-Saunders,  72.  'The  Population  Problem."  Ox- 
ford, 1922. 

Crew,  '23.     Proc.  Roy.  Soc.  (B.).     London,  1923. 

Cunningham,  J.  T.,  '00.  "Sexual  Dimorphism  in  the  An- 
imal Kingdom."     London,  1900. 

Doncaster,  L.,  '14.  "The  Determination  of  Sex."  Cam- 
bridge, 1914. 

East  and  Jones,  '19.  "Inbreeding  and  Outbreeding." 
Philadelphia,  1919. 

Ellis,  Havelock,  '10.  "Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex." 
Philadelphia,  1910. 

Freud.     "The  Psychology  of  the  Unconscious." 

Goldschmidt,  R.,  '23.  "The  Mechanism  and  Physiology 
of  Sex-Determination."     London,  1923. 

Harrow,  B.,  '23.  "Glands  in  Health  and  Disease."  Lon- 
don, 1923. 

Howard,  E.,  '20.  "Territory  in  Bird  Life."  London, 
1920. 


SEX    BIOLOGY   AND   SEX    PSYCHOLOGY  173 

Huxley,  '14.  (Reversed  Pairing,  Grebe)  Proc.  Zool.  Soc. 
London,  1914. 

Huxley,  '23.  (Courtship  and  Display)  Proc.  Linnean 
Soc.     London,  1923. 

Jung,  '20.     "Analytical  Psychology."     London,  1920. 

Lipschutz,    '19.     "Die    Pubertatsdruse."     Bern,    1919. 

Marshall,  '23.  "The  Physiology  of  Reproduction"  (2nd 
Ed.).     Cambridge,  1923. 

Meisenheimer,  J.,  '21.  "Geschlecht  und  Geschlechter." 
Jena,  1921. 

Morgan,  '19.  "The  Physical  Basis  of  Heredity."  Phila- 
delphia, 1919. 

Rivers,  '20.  "Instinct  and  the  Unconscious."  Cam- 
bridge, 1920. 

Selous,  E.,  '20.  (Moorhen)  Zoologist  [4]  6.  London, 
1902. 

Steinach  J.,  '20.    Verjiingung,  Leipzig,   1920. 

Stopes,  Marie.     "Married  Love." 

Tansley,   '20.     "The  New   Psychology."    London,    1920. 

Vincent,  Swale,  '21.  "Internal  Secretion  and  the  Duct- 
less Gland"  (2nd  Ed.).     London,  1921. 

Voronoff,  S.,  '23.    "Greffes  Testiculaires."     Paris,   1923. 


V 

PHILOSOPHIC  ants: 

A   BIOLOGIC    FANTASY 


PHILOSOPHIC ANTS? 

Amoeba  has  her  picture  in  the  book, 
Proud  Protozoon! — Yet  beware  of  pride. 
All  she  can  do  is  fatten  and  divide; 

She  cannot  even  read,  or  sew,  or  cook  .  .  . 

The  Worm  can  crawl— but  has  no  eyes  to  look: 
The  Jelly-fish  can  swim— but  lacks  a  bride: 
The  Fly's  a  very  Ass  personified: 

And  speech  is  absent  even  from  the  Rook. 

The  Ant  herself  cannot  philosophize— 

While  Man  does  that,  and  sees,  and  keeps  a  wife, 
And  flies,  and  talks,  and  is  extremely  wise  .  .  . 

Will  our  Philosophy  to  later  Life 
Seem  but  a  crudeness  of  the  planet's  youth, 
Our  Wisdom  but  a  parasite  of  Truth? 


PHILOSOPHIC  ants: 

A    BIOLOGIC    FANTASY  ^ 

"Incomprehensibility;    that's    what    I    say." — Lewis    Carroll 
{amended) . 

ACCORDING  to  a  recent  study  by  A4r.  Shapley 
(Proc.  Nat.  Acad.  Sci.,  Philadelphia,  vol.  vi, 
p.  204),  the  normal  rate  of  progression  of  ants 
— or  at  least  of  the  species  of  ant  which  he  studied — 
is  a  function  of  temperature.  For  each  rise  of  ten 
degrees  centigrade,  the  ants  go  about  double  as  fast. 
So  complete  is  the  dependence  that  the  ants  may  be 
employed  as  a  thermometer,  measurement  of  their 
rate  of  locomotion  giving  the  temperature  to  within 
one  degree  centigrade. 

******* 

The  simple  consequence — easy  of  apprehension  by 
us,  but  infinite  puzzlement  to  ants — is  that  on  a  warm 
day  an  ant  will  get  through  a  task  four  or  five  times 
as  heavy  as  she  will  on  a  cold  one.  She  does  more, 
thinks  more,  lives  more:  more  Bergsonian  duration 
is  hers. 

There  was  a  time,  we  learn  in  the  myrmecine  an- 

1  Read  before  the  Heretics  Club,  Cambridge,  May   1922. 

177 


178  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

nals,  when  ants  were  simple  unsophisticated  folk, 
barely  emerged  from  entomological  barbarism. 
Some  stayed  at  home  to  look  after  the  young  brood 
and  tend  the  houses,  others  went  afield  to  forage.  It 
was  not  long  before  they  discovered  that  the  days 
differed  in  length.  At  one  season  of  the  year  they 
found  the  days  insufferably  long;  they  must  rest 
five  or  six  times  if  they  were,  by  continuing  work 
while  light  lasted,  to  satisfy  their  fabulous  instinct 
for  toil.  At  the  opposite  season,  they  needed  no  rest 
at  all,  for  they  only  carried  through  a  fifth  of  the 
work.  This  irregularity  vexed  them:  and  what  is 
more,  time  varied  from  day  to  day,  and  this  hindered 
them  in  the  accurate  execution  of  any  plans. 

But  as  the  foragers  talked  with  the  household  serv- 
ants, and  with  those  of  their  own  number  who 
through  illness  or  accident  were  forced  to  stay  in- 
doors, they  discovered  that  the  home-stayers  noticed 
a  much  slighter  difference  in  time  between  the  sea- 
sons. 

It  is  easy  for  us  to  see  this  as  due  to  the  simple 
fact  that  the  temperature  of  the  nest  varies  less, 
summer  and  winter,  than  does  that  of  the  outer  air: 
but  it  was  a  hard  nut  for  them,  and  there  was  much 
head-scratching.  It  was  of  course  made  extremely 
difficult  by  the  fact  that  they  were  not  sensitive  to 
gradual  changes  in  temperature  as  such,  the  change 
being  as  it  were  taken  up  in  the  altered  rate  of  liv- 
ing.    But  as  their  processes  of  thought  kept  pace  in 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  179 

alteration  with  their  movements,  they  found  it  sim- 
plest and  most  natural  to  believe  in  the  fixity  and  uni- 
formity of  their  own  life  and  its  processes,  and  to 
refer  all  changes  to  the  already  obvious  mutability 
of  external  nature. 

The  Wise  Ants  were  summoned:  they  were  or- 
dered by  the  Queen  to  investigate  the  matter;  and  so, 
after  consultation,  decided  to  apply  the  test  of  ex- 
periment. Several  of  their  numbers,  at  stated  inter- 
vals throughout  the  year,  stayed  in  and  went  out  on 
alternate  days,  performing  identical  tasks  on  the  two 
occasions.  The  task  was  the  repeated  recitation  of 
the  most  efficacious  of  the  myrmecine  sacred  formulae. 

The  rough-and-ready  calculations  of  the  workers 
were  speedily  corroborated.  ''Great  is  God,  and  we 
are  the  people  of  God"  could  be  recited  out-of-doors 
some  twenty  thousand  times  a  day  in  summer,  less 
than  four  thousand  times  in  winter;  while  the  corre- 
sponding indoor  figures  were  about  fifteen  thousand 
and  six  thousand. 

There  was  the  fact ;  now  for  the  explanation.  After 
many  conclaves,  a  most  ingenious  hypothesis  was 
put  forward,  which  found  universal  credence.  Let 
me  give  it  in  an  elegant  and  logical  form. 

(1)  It  was  well-known — indeed  self-evident — that 
the  Ant  race  was  the  offspring  and  special 
care  of  the  Power  who  made  and  ruled  the 
universe. 

(1.1)  Therefore  a  great  deal  of  the  virtue   and 


180  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

essence  of  that  Power  inhered  in  the  race 
of  Ants.  Ants,  indeed,  were  made  in  the 
image  of  God. 

(1.2)  It  was,  alas,  common  knowledge  that  this 
Power,  although  Omnipotent  and  Omnis- 
cient, was  confronted  by  another  power, 
the  power  of  disorder,  of  irregularity,  who 
prevented  tasks,  put  temptations  in  the 
way  of  workers,  and  was  in  fact  the  genius 
of  Evil. 

(2)  Further,  it  was  a  received  tradition  among  them 
that  there  had  been  a  fall  from  the  grace 
of  a  Golden  Age,  when  there  were  no  neu- 
ters, but  all  enjoyed  married  bliss;  and  the 
ant-cows  gave  milk  and  honey  from  their 
teats. 

(2.1)  And  that  this  was  forfeited  by  a  crime  (un- 
mentionable, I  regret  to  say,  in  modern  so- 
ciety) on  the  part  of  a  certain  Queen  of 
Ants  in  the  distant  past.  The  Golden  Age 
was  gone;  the  poor  neuters — obligate  spin- 
sters— were  brought  into  being;  work  be- 
came the  order  of  the  day.  Ant-lions  with 
flaming  jaws  were  set  round  that  kingdom 
of  Golden  Age,  from  which  all  ants  were 
thenceforth  expelled. 

(2.2.1)  This  being  so,  it  was  natural  to  conclude 
that  the  fall  from  grace  involved  a  certain 
loss  of  divine  qualities. 

(2.2.2)  The  general  conclusion  to  be  drawn  was 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  181 

that  in  the  race  of  ants  there  still  resided 
a  certain  quantity  of  these  virtues  that 
give  regularity  to  things  and  events;  al- 
though not  sufficient  wholly  to  counter- 
balance the  machinations  of  the  power  of 
evil  and  disorder. 

(2.2.3)  That  where  a  number  of  ants  had  their 
home  and  were  congregated  together,  there 
the  virtue  resided  in  larger  bulk  and  with 
greater  effect,  but  that  abroad,  where  ants 
were  scattered  and  away  from  hearth, 
home,  and  altar,  the  demon  of  irregularity 
exerted  greater  sway. 

This  doctrine  held  the  field  for  centuries. 
******* 

But  at  last  a  philosopher  arose.  He  was  not  satis- 
fied with  the  current  explanation,  although  this  had 
been  held  for  so  long  that  it  had  acquired  the  odour 
and  force  of  a  religious  dogma.  He  decided  to  put 
the  matter  to  the  test.  He  took  a  pupa  (anglice 
"ant's  egg")  and  on  a  windless  day  suspended  it  from 
a  twig  outside  the  nest.  There  he  had  it  swung  back 
and  forth,  counting  its  swings.  He  then  (having 
previously  obtained  permission  from  the  Royal  Sacer- 
dotal College)  suspended  the  pupa  by  the  same 
length  of  thread  from  the  roof  of  the  largest  chamber 
of  the  nest — a  dome  devoted  to  spiritual  exercise — 
and  repeated  the  swinging  and  the  counting.  The 
living  pendulum-bob  achieved  the  same  daily  num- 
ber of  oscillations  inside  the  nest  as  outside,  although 


182  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

it  was  full  summer,  and  the  foragers  found  the  day 
quite  twice  as  long  as  did  the  home-stayers.  The 
trial  was  repeated  with  another  pupa  and  other 
lengths  of  thread;  the  result  was  always  the  same. 

It  was  then  that  he  laid  the  foundations  of  ant 
science  by  his  bold  pronouncement  that  neither  the 
combat  of  spiritual  powers  nor  the  expansion  or  con- 
traction of  the  store  of  divine  grace  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  strange  alteration  of  diurnal  length;  but 
that  the  cause  of  it  lay  in  the  Ants  themselves,  who 
varied  with  the  varying  of  something  for  which  he 
invented  the  word  Temperature,  not  in  a  contraction 
or  expansion  of  Time. 

This  he  announced  in  public,  thinking  that  a  tested 
truth  must  be  well-received,  and  would  of  necessity 
some  day  prove  useful  to  society.  But  the  conse- 
quence was  a  storm  of  protest,  horror,  and  execration. 

Did  this  impious  creature  think  to  overthrow  the 
holy  traditions  with  impunity?  Did  he  not  realize 
that  to  impugn  one  sentence,  one  word,  one  letter  of 
the  Sacred  Books  was  to  subvert  the  whole?  Did 
he  think  that  a  coarse,  simple,  verifiable  experiment 
was  to  weigh  against  the  eternal  verity  of  subtle  and 
mysterious  Revelation?  No!  and  again  a  thousand 
times  No!  ! 

He  was  brought  before  the  Wise  Ants,  and  cross- 
questioned  by  them.  It  was  finally  decided  that  he 
was  to  abjure  his  heretical  opinion  and  to  recant  in 
public,  reciting  aloud  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven: 
''the  Ant  is  the  norm  of  all" — 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  183 

He  said  it.  But  Truth  stirred  within  him,  and  under 
his  breath  he  muttered  "Eppur  si  muove  .  .  ."  This 
was  overheard,  and  he  was  condemned  (loneliness  be- 
ing much  hated  and  dreaded  by  ants)  to  a  solitary 
banishment. 

Later  philosophers,  however,  by  using  this  same 
pendulum  method,  were  enabled  to  fmd  that  the 
movements  of  sap  in  plants  differed  in  rate  accord- 
ing to  the  length  of  day,  and  later  discovered  that 
the  expansion  of  water  in  hollow  stems  also  followed 
these  changes.  By  devising  machines  for  registering 
these  movements,  they  were  enabled  to  prophesy  with 
considerable  success  the  amount  of  work  to  be  got 
through  on  a  given  day,  and  so  to  render  great  aid  to 
the  smooth  working  of  the  body  politic.  Thus,  grad- 
ually, the  old  ideas  fell  into  desuetude  among  the 
educated  classes — which,  however,  did  not  prevent 
the  common  people  from  remaining  less  than  half- 
convinced  and  from  regarding  the  men  of  science  with 
suspicion  and  disapproval. 

******* 

We  happen  to  be  warm-blooded — to  have  had  the 
particular  problem  faced  by  our  philosophic  ants 
solved  for  us  during  the  passage  of  evolutionary 
time,  not  by  any  taking  of  thought  on  our  part  or 
on  the  part  of  our  ancestors,  but  by  the  casual  proc- 
esses of  variation  and  natural  selection.  But  a  suc- 
cession of  similar  problems  presses  upon  us.     Rela- 


184  ESSAYS  OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

tivity  is  in  the  air;  it  is  so  much  in  the  air  that  it 
becomes  almost  stifling  at  times;  but  even  so,  its 
sphere  so  far  has  been  the  inorganic  sciences,  and  bio- 
logical relativity,  though  equally  important,  has  been 
little  mentioned. 

We  have  all  heard  the  definition  of  life  as  "one 
damn  thing  after  another";  it  would  perhaps  be 
more  accurate  to  substitute  some  term  such  as 
relatedness  for  thing. 

When  I  was  a  small  boy,  my  mother  wrote  down  in 
a  little  book  a  number  of  my  infant  doings  and  child- 
ish sayings,  the  perusal  of  which  I  find  an  admirable 
corrective  to  any  excessive  moral  or  intellectual  con- 
ceit. What,  for  instance,  is  to  be  thought  of  a  sci- 
entist of  whom  the  following  incident  is  recorded, 
even  if  the  record  refers  to  the  age  of  four  years? 

I  (for  convenience  one  must  assign  the  same  iden- 
tity to  oneself  at  different  ages,  although  again  it  is 
but  a  relative  sameness  that  persists) — I  had  made 
some  particularly  outrageous  statement  which  was 
easily  proved  false:  to  which  proof,  apparently  with- 
out compunction,  I  answered,  ''Oh,  well,  I  always 
ex^gg-erate  when  it's  a  fine  day.  .  .  ." 

The  converse  of  this  I  came  across  recently  in  a 
solemn  treatise  of  psychology:  a  small  girl  of  five  or 
six,  in  the  course  of  an  ''essay"  in  school,  affirmed 
that  the  sun  was  shining  and  the  day  was  fine;  while 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  had  been  continuously  overcast 
and  gloomy:  on  being  pressed  for  a  reason,  she  ex- 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  185 

plained  that  she  felt  so  happy  that  particular  morn- 
ing that  she  had  been  sure  it  was  a  fine  day. 

If  the  weather  can  affect  one's  statements  of  fact, 
and  one's  emotions  can  affect  the  apparent  course 
of  meteorological  events,  where  is  the  line  to  be 
drawn?  What  is  real?  The  only  things  of  which 
we  have  immediate  cognizance  are,  of  course,  hap- 
penings in  our  minds:  and  the  precise  nature  and 
quality  of  each  of  these  happenings  depends  on  two 
things — on  the  constitution  and  state  of  our  mind 
and  its  train  on  the  one  hand;  on  the  other  hand 
upon  events  or  relations  between  events  outside  that 
system.  That  sounds  very  grand;  but  all  it  means 
after  all  is  that  you  need  a  cause  to  produce  an  effect, 
a  machine  to  register  as  well  as  a  something  to  be 
registered. 

As  further  consequence,  since  this  particular  ma- 
chine (if  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  the  odious  word 
in  a  purely  metaphorical  sense),  this  mind  of  ours, 
is  never  the  same  for  two  succeeding  instants,  but 
continually  varies  both  in  the  quantity  of  its  activity 
and  the  quality  of  its  state,  it  follows  that  variations 
in  mental  happenings  depend  very  largely  on  varia- 
tions in  the  machine  that  registers,  not  by  any 
means  solely  upon  variations  in  what  is  to  be 
registered. 

Few  (at  least  among  Englishmen)  would  dispute 
the  thesis  that  food,  properly  cooked  and  served,  and 
of  course  adapted  to  the  hour,  is  attractive  four 


186  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

times  in  the  day.  But  to  a  large  proportion  among 
us,  even  sausages  and  marmalade  at  nine,  or  roast 
beef  and  potatoes  on  a  Sabbath  noon,  would  prove 
not  only  not  attractive  but  positively  repellent  if 
offered  us  on  a  small  steamer  on  a  rough  day.  I 
will  not  labour  the  point. 

We  all  know  how  the  size  of  sums  of  money  ap- 
pears to  vary  in  a  remarkable  way  according  as  they 
are  being  paid  in  or  paid  out.  We  all  know  to  our 
cost  the  extraordinary  superiority  of  the  epochs  when 
our  more  elderly  relatives  were  youthful.  The  fact 
remains  that  we  are  always  prone  to  regard  the  regis- 
tering machine  as  a  constant,  and  to  believe  that  all 
the  variation  comes  from  outside.  It  is  easy  to 
discount  the  inner  variation  in  ourselves  when  we  are 
seasick,  or  in  others  when  they  are  old  and  reminis- 
cent, but  not  only  is  this  discounting  sometimes  far 
more  difficult,  it  is  sometimes  not  even  attempted. 

What,  for  instance,  are  we  to  say  to  those  who 
profess  to  find  a  harmony  in  the  universe,  those  to 
whom  poverty  and  discomfort  and  hard  work  appear 
the  merest  accidents,  to  whom  even  disease,  pain, 
loss,  death,  and  disaster  are  "somehow  good"?  You 
and  I  would  probably  retort  that  we  have  a  rooted 
dislike  to  discomfort,  that  we  should  most  strongly 
deny  that  the  loss  of  a  friend  or  even  of  a  leg  was 
anything  but  bad,  that  a  toothache  was  not  dam- 
nably unpleasant.  But  I  think  that  if  they  were 
philosophically  inclined  (which  they  probably  would 
not  be),  they  might  justifiably  retort  that  the  dif- 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  187 

ference  between  their  universe  and  ours  was  due  to  a 
difference  in  their  mental  machinery,  which  they  had 
succeeded  in  adjusting  so  that  it  registered  in  a  dif- 
ferent and  a  better  way. 

It  is  at  least  clear  that  something  of  the  sort  can 
happen  in  the  intellectual  sphere.  To  the  unedu- 
cated, the  totality  of  things,  if  ever  reflected  upon,  is 
a  compound  of  fog  and  chaos:  advance  is  painfully 
slow,  and  interlarded  with  unpleasant  falls  into  pits 
and  holes  of  illogicality  and  inconsequence;  to  those 
who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  push  on,  however,  an 
orderly  system  at  last  reveals  itself. 

The  problem  of  the  origin  and  relationship  of  spe- 
cies gave  such  mental  distress  to  those  zoologists  of 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  who  were  con- 
scientious enough  to  struggle  with  it,  that  many  of 
them  ended  by  a  mental  suppression  of  the  problem 
and  a  refusal  to  discuss  it  further.  The  publication 
of  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  was  to  them  what 
psycho-analysis  is  (or  may  be)  to  a  patient  with  a 
repressed  complex.  Or  again,  no  one  can  read  ac- 
counts of  the  physicists'  recent  work  on  the  structure 
of  the  atom  without  experiencing  an  extraordinary 
feeling  of  satisfaction.  Instead  of  wallowing  in  un- 
related facts,  we  fly  on  wings  of  principle;  not  only 
can  we  better  cut  our  way  through  the  jungle  of 
things,  but  we  are  allowed  a  privilege  that  has  uni- 
versally been  considered  one  of  the  attributes  of  Gods 
— the  calm  and  untroubled  understanding  of  things 
and  processes. 


188  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

"The  Gods  are  happy. 
They  turn  on  all  sides 
Their  shining  eyes, 
And  see  below  them 
The  earth  and  men." 

This  being  so,  what  is  to  prevent  us  from  believing 
that,  once  certain  adjustments  are  made  in  the  men- 
tal sausage-machine,  we  shall  discover  that  what  we 
once  found  impossibly  tough  meat  will  pass  smoothly 
through 'and  become  done  up  into  the  most  satisfac- 
tory of  sausages?  In  other  words,  that  the  values 
are  there  if  we  choose  to  make  them — an  Euckenish 
doctrine  which,  for  all  that  it  arouses  instinctive  sus- 
picion, may  none  the  less  be  true. 

But  even  when  we  have  made  all  possible  discounts 
of  this  kind,  evolved  the  smoothest-running  machin- 
ery, converted  the  raw  and  meaty  material  of  being 
into  every  conceivable  kind  of  tidy  sausage,  the  fact 
remains  that  there  are  feats  beyond  the  power  of  our 
machine — beyond  its  power  because  of  the  very  qual- 
fty  of  its  being. 

We  live  at  a  certain  rhythm  in  time,  at  a  certain 
level  of  size  and  space;  beyond  certain  limits,  events 
in  the  outer  world  are  not  directly  appreciable  by 
the  ordinary  channels  of  sense,  although  a  symbolic 
picture  of  them  may  be  presented  to  us  by  the  in- 
tellect. 

When  we  are  listening  to  the  organ,  sometimes 
there  come  notes  which  are  on  the  border-line  be- 
tween sound  and  feeling:  their  separate  vibrations 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  189 

are  distinguishable  and  pulse  through  us,  and  the 
more  the  vibrations  are  separable,  the  more  they  are 
felt  as  mechanical  shocks,  the  less  as  sound.  How- 
ever, we  know  perfectly  well  that  all  sounds  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  depend  on  vibratory  disturbance,  and  that 
it  is  only  some  peculiarity  of  the  registering  ma- 
chinery, in  ear  or  brain,  which  enables  us  to  hear  a 
note  as  continuous. 

Still  more  remarkable  are  the  facts  of  vision.  As 
I  write  I  see  the  tulips  in  my  garden,  red  against  the 
green  grass:  the  red  is  a  continuous  sensation;  but 
the  physicists  appear  to  be  justified  in  telling  us  that 
the  eye  is  being  bombarded  every  second  with  a  series 
of  waves,  not  the  few  hundred  or  thousand  that  give 
us  sound,  but  the  half-billion  or  so  which  conspire  to 
illuminate  our  vision. 

With  sound,  we  alter  the  frequency  of  the  waves 
and  we  get  a  difference  of  tone  which  seems  to  be 
merely  a  difference  of  more  or  less:  but  alter  the  fre- 
quency of  light-waves,  and  the  whole  quality  of  the 
sensation  changes,  as  when  I  look  from  the  tulips  to 
the  sky.  The  change  of  registering  mechanism  is 
here  more  profound  than  the  change  in  outer  event. 

Or  again,  to  choose  an  example  that  depends  more 
on  size  than  rhythm,  how  very  difficult  it  is  to  re- 
member that  the  pressure  of  air  on  our  bodies  is  not 
the  uniform  gentle  embrace  of  some  homogeneous 
substance,  but  the  bombardment  of  an  infinity  of 
particles.  The  particles  are  not  even  all  alike:  some 
^re  of  oxygen,  others  of  nitrogen,  of  carbonic  acid 


190  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

gas,  of  water  vapour.  They  are  not  all  travelling  at 
uniform  speeds;  collisions  are  all  the  time  occurring, 
and  the  molecules  are  continuously  changing  their 
rate  of  travel  as  they  clash  and  bump. 

We  have  only  to  look  down  a  microscope  to  con- 
vince ourselves  of  the  alteration  in  our  experience 
that  it  would  mean  if  we  were  to  become  sufficiently 
diminished.  The  tiniest  solid  particles  in  fluids  can 
be  seen  to  be  in  a  continuous  state  of  agitation — in- 
explicable until  it  was  pointed  out  that  this  mysteri- 
ous "Brownian"  movement  was  the  inevitable  result 
of  impacts  by  the  faster-moving  molecules  of  the 
fluid.  Many  living  things  that  we  can  still  see  are 
small  enough  to  live  permanently  in  such  agitation; 
the  longest  diameter  of  many  bacteria  is  but  half  a 
micron  (a  two-thousandth  of  a  millimetre),  and  there 
are  many  ultra-microscopic  organisms  which,  owing 
to  their  closer  approximation  to  molecular  dimen- 
sions, must  pass  their  lives  in  erratic  excursions  many 
times  more  violent  than  any  visible  Brownian  mo- 
tion. 

If  we  could  shrink,  like  Alice,  at  the  persuasion  of 
some  magic  mushroom,  the  rain  of  particles  on  our 
skin,  now  as  unfelt  as  midges  by  a  rhinoceros,  would 
at  last  begin  to  be  perceptible.  We  should  find  our- 
selves surrounded  by  an  infinity  of  motes;  titillated 
by  a  dance  of  sand-grains;  bruised  by  a  rain  of  mar- 
bles; pounded  by  flights  of  fives-balls.  What  is  more, 
the  smaller  we  became,  the  more  individuality  and 
apparent  free-will  should  we  detect  in  the  surround- 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  191 

ing  particles.  As  we  got  still  smaller,  we  should, 
now  and  again,  find  the  nearly  uniform  bombard- 
ment replaced  by  a  concerted  attack  on  one  side  or 
the  other,  and  we  should  be  hurled  for  perhaps  double 
our  own  length  in  one  direction.  If  we  could  con- 
ceivably enter  into  a  single  inorganic  molecule,  we 
should  find  ourselves  one  of  a  moving  host  of 
similar  objects:  and  we  should  further  perceive  that 
these  objects  were  themselves  complex,  some  like 
double  stars,  others  star-clusters,  others  single  suns, 
and  all  again  built  of  lesser  units  held  in  a  definite 
plan,  in  an  architecture  reminding  us  (if  we  still  had 
memory)  of  a  solar  system  in  petto.  If  we  were 
lucky  enough  to  be  in  a  complicated  fiuid  like  sea- 
water,  we  should  be  intrigued  by  the  relations  of  the 
different  kinds  of  particles.  They  would  be  continu- 
ally coming  up  to  other  particles  of  different  kinds, 
and  would  then  sometimes  enter  into  intimate  union 
with  them.  If  we  could  manage  to  follow  their  his- 
tory, we  should  find  that  after  a  time  they  would 
separate,  and  seek  new  partners,  of  the  same  or  of 
different  species.  Some  kinds  of  the  units,  or  people 
as  we  should  be  inclined  to  call  them,  would  spend 
most  of  their  existence  in  the  married  state,  others 
would  apparently  prefer  to  remain  single,  or,  if  they 
married,  would  within  no  long  time  obtain  divorce. 
We  should  be  forcibly  reminded  of  life  in  some 
cosmopolitan  city  like  London  or  New  York.  If 
there  existed  a  registrar  to  note  down  the  events  of 
these  little  beings'  existence,  and  we  were  privileged 


192  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

to  inspect  the  register,  we  should  find  that  each  had 
its  own  history,  different  from  that  of  every  other 
in  its  course  and  its  matrimonial  adventures. 

If  we  were  near  the  surface  we  should  fmd  that  the 
outer  beings  always  arranged  themselves  in  a  special 
and  coherent  layer,  apparently  to  protect  themselves 
against  the  machinations  of  the  different  beings  in- 
habiting the  region  beyond;  for  every  now  and  again 
one  would  seem  to  be  pulled  from  the  water  and  be 
lost  among  the  more  scattered  inhabitants  of  the  air. 

If  we  could  now  revert  to  our  old  size,  we  might 
remember,  as  we  listened  to  the  scientist  enunciating 
the  simple  formulae  of  the  gas-laws,  or  giving  numer- 
ical expression  to  vapour-pressures  and  solubilities, 
that  this  simplicity  and  order  which  he  enabled  us  to 
fmd  in  inorganic  nature  was  only  simplicity  when 
viewed  on  a  large  enough  scale,  and  that  it  was  need- 
ful to  deal  in  millions  and  billions  before  chance 
aberrations  faded  into  insignificance,  needful  to  ex- 
perience molecules  from  the  standpoint  of  a  unit 
almost  infinitely  bigger  before  individual  behaviour 
could  be  neglected  and  merged  in  the  orderly  average. 
And  we  might  be  tempted  to  wonder  how  the  per- 
sonal idiosyncrasies  of  our  human  units  might  appear 
to  a  being  as  much  larger  than  we  as  we  are  larger 
than  a  molecule — whether  kings  and  beggars  would 
not  fare  alike,  and  all  the  separate,  striving,  feeling, 
conflicting  personalities,  with  their  individual  his- 
tories, their  ancestors,  successes,  marriages,  friend- 
ships, pains,  and  pleasures,  be  merged  in  some  homo- 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  193 

geneous  and  simple  effect,  altering  in  response  to  cir- 
cumstances, with  changes  capable  of  expression  in 
some  formula  as  simple  as  Boyle's  or  Avogadro's 
Law. 

Almost  more  startling  might  be  the  effect  of  alter- 
ing the  rhythm  at  which  we  live,  or  rather  at  which 
we  experience  events. 

If  only  I  were  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  I  could  make  a 
mint  of  money  by  a  story  based  on  this  idea  of 
rhythm  of  living.^  Let  us  see  .  .  .  First  there  would 
be  Mercaptan  the  distinguished  inventor,  who  would 
lead  me  (lay,  uninstructed,  Watsonish  me,  after  the 
fashion  of  narrators)  into  his  laboratory.  There  on 
the  table  would  be  the  machine — all  but  complete: 
handles,  coils  of  wire,  quartz  terminals,  gauges  of 
rock-crystal  in  which  oscillated  coloured  fluids,  plati- 
num cogwheels  .  .  .  dot  .  .  .  dot  .  .  .  dot  .  .  .  dot.  .  .  . 
He  hardly  dared  to  make  the  fmal  connections,  all 
clear  and  calculable  though  they  were.  He  had  put 
so  much  of  himself  into  it:  so  many  hopes  .  .  . 
fears  .  .  .  dots.  .  .  . 

Then  there  would  be  the  farewell  dinner-party — 
first  the  inventor's  voice  on  the  wireless  telephone, 

2  The  reading  of  this  paper  brought  a  string  of  informants 
eager  to  let  me  know  that  Mr.  Wells  had  already  written  a 
story  on  this  theme.  1  was  grateful  to  them  for  having  caused 
me  to  read  the  hiew  Accelerator,  which  by  some  strange  chance 
I  had  managed  to  miss:  but  Mr.  Wells's  treatment  is  so  wholly 
different  from  that  which  I  have  sketched  that  1  feel  no  scruples 
in  letting  it  stand:  and,  if  amends  are  needed,  at  least  I  make 
him  a  present  of  the  germ  of  a  new  tale,  and  so  feel  that  honour 
should  be  satisfied. 


194  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

summoning  Wagrom  the  explorer,  Glosh  of  the  Eve- 
ning Post,  Stewartson  Ampill  the  novelist,  and  the 
rest  of  our  old  friends:  then  the  warm  friendly  light 
of  the  candles,  the  excellent  port,  the  absence  of 
women,  the  reminiscences,  the  asterisks,  the.  .  .  . 

Mercaptan  refuses  to  allow  the  rest  to  come  into 
the  laboratory,  in  case  something  should  go  wrong. 
He  straps  the  machine  on  his  shoulders,  makes  a 
final  connection;  his  life  processes  begin  to  work 
faster,  faster,  ever  faster.  The  first  efi"ect  of  course 
was  a  change  of  colour.  The  blue  oblong  of  the 
window  beoame  green — yellow — orange — red.  Mean- 
w^hile  each  wave-length  of  the  ultra-violet  became 
blue,  and  itself  ran  down  the  gamut  of  colour.  Then 
came  the  turn  of  the  X-rays — by  their  dim  light  he 
groped  about,  till  they  too  became  relatively  too  slow 
for  his  retina.  That  ought  to  make  him  blind,  of 
course — but  no!  Mr.  Wells  had  thought  that  all 
out;  and  he  came  into  a  state  of  nearly  maximum 
speed  where  he  perceived  a  brilliant,  phosphorescent 
light  given  out  by  all  objects,  generated  by  disturb- 
ances of  a  wave-length  unimaginably,  undiscoverably 
small.  Meanwhile  he  had  passed  through  an  amaz- 
ing experience — he  had  heard  the  veritable  music  of 
the  spheres!  That  had  happened  when  in  his  ac- 
celeration he  had,  so  to  speak,  caught  up  with  the 
light-waves,  until  they  were  tuned  to  his  ear's  organ 
of  Corti:  and  all  that  had  been  visible  in  his  ordi- 
nary life  was  now  to  be  appreciated  by  hearing.  Un- 
fortunately, as  his  ears  possessed  no  lens,  this  uni- 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  195 

versal  music  was  to  him  of  course  merely  a  hideous 
babel  of  sound. 

At  last,  as  the  workings  of  his  body  approached 
the  rapidity  of  light's  own  oscillations,  he  entered 
on  a  new  phase — surrounded  on  every  side  by  an 
ocean  of  waves  which  lapped  softly  against  his  body 
— waves,  waves,  and  still  more  waves.  .  .  . 

He  was  in  that  region  not  unlike  that  from  which 
life  has  escaped  when  it  ceased  to  be  infinitely  little, 
a  region  in  which  none  of  the  events  that  make  up 
our  ordinary  life,  none  of  the  bodies  that  are  our 
normal  environment,  have  existence  any  more — all 
reduced  to  a  chaos  of  billows  ceaselessly  and  mean- 
inglessly  buffeting  his  being. 

"Mi  ritrovai  in  una  selva  oscura." 

Life  is  a  wood,  dark  and  trackless  enough  to  be 
sure;  but  Mercaptan  could  not  even  see  that  it  was  a 
wood — for  the  trees. 

Yet  it  was  soothing:  the  very  meaninglessness  of 
the  wave-rocking  released  one  of  responsibility,  and 
it  was  delicious  to  float  upon  this  strange  etheric  sea. 

Then  his  scientific  mind  reasserted  itself.  He  real- 
ized that  he  had  magnified  his  rate  of  life  and  was 
consuming  his  precious  days  at  an  appalling  speed. 
The  lever  was  thrown  into  reverse,  and  he  passed 
gradually  back  to  what  he  had  been  accustomed  to 
think  of  as  reality. 

Back  to  it;  and  then  beyond  it,  slowing  his  vital 
rhythm.  This  time  he  was  able  by  an  ingenious 
arrangement  to  eliminate  much  of  the  disturbing 


196  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

effect  of  his  rhythm-change  on  his  vision.  It  was  an 
idea  of  which  he  was  very  proud:  every  alternate 
light-wave  was  cut  out  when  he  doubled  the  capacity 
of  each  process  of  life,  and  so  on  in  automatic  corre- 
spondence. As  a  result  he  was  enabled  to  get  a  pic- 
ture of  the  outer  world  very  similar  to  that  obtained 
in  the  ordinary  accelerations  of  slow  processes  that 
are  made  possible  by  running  slow-taken  cinema  rec- 
ords at  high  speed.  He  saw  the  snowdrops  lift  their 
matutinal  heads  and  drop  them  again  at  evening — 
an  instant  later;  the  spring  was  an  alarming  burst  of 
living  energy,  the  trees'  budding  and  growth  of  leaves 
became  a  portent,  like  the  bristling  of  hairs  on  the 
backs  of  vegetable  cats.  As  his  rate  changed  and 
he  comprehended  more  and  more  in  each  pulse,  the 
flowers  faded  and  fell  before  he  could  think  of  pluck- 
ing them,  autumnal  apples  rotted  in  his  grasp,  day 
was  a  flash  and  night  a  wink  of  the  eye,  the  two 
blending  at  last  in  a  continuous  half-light. 

After  a  time  ordinary  objects  ceased  to  be  dis- 
tinguishable; then  the  seasons  shared  the  fate  of  day 
and  night.  The  lever  was  now  nearly  hard  over, 
and  the  machine  was  reaching  its  limits.  He  was 
covering  nearly  a  thousand  of  men's  years  with  each 
of  his  own  seconds. 

The  cinema  effect  was  almost  useless  to  him  now; 
and  he  discarded  this  apparatus.  Now  followed 
what  he  had  so  eagerly  awaited,  something  deducible 
in  general  but  unpredictable  in  all  particulars.  As 
the  repeated  separate  impacts  of  the  ether  waves  had 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  197 

condensed,  at  his  old  ordinary  rate,  to  form  the  con- 
tinuous sensation  of  light,  so  now  the  events  of  na- 
ture coalesced  to  give  new  objects,  new  kinds  of  sen- 
sation. Especially  was  this  so  with  life:  the  re- 
peated generations  seemed  to  act  like  separate  re- 
peated waves  of  light,  blending  to  give  a  picture  of 
the  species  changing  and  evolving  before  his  eyes. 

Other  experiences  he  could  explain  less  well.  He 
was  conscious  of  strange  sensations  that  he  thought 
were  probably  associated  with  changes  in  energy- 
distribution,  in  entropy;  others  which  he  seemed  to 
perceive  directly,  by  some  form  of  telepathy,  con- 
cerning the  type  of  mental  process  occurring  around 
him.  It  was  all  strange:  but  of  one  thing  he  was 
sure — that  if  only  he  could  fmd  a  way  of  nourish- 
ing and  maintaining  himself  in  this  new  state,  he 
would  be  able,  as  a  child  does  in  the  first  few  years 
of  life,  to  correlate  his  puzzling  new  sensations,  and 
that  when  he  had  done  this  he  would  obtain  a  differ- 
ent and  more  direct  view  of  reality  than  any  he  had 
ever  obtained  or  thought  of  obtaining  before. 

As  the  individual  light-waves  were  summed  to 
give  light,  as  the  microcosm  of  gas-molecules  can- 
celled out  to  give  a  uniformity  of  pressure,  so  now 
the  repetition  of  the  years  coalesced  into  what  could 
be  described  as  visible  time,  a  sensation  of  cosmic 
rate;  the  repeated  pullulations  of  living  things  fused 
into  something  perceived  as  organic  achievement: 
and  the  infinite  variety  of  organisms,  their  conflicts 
and  interactions,  resolved  itself,  through  the  media- 


198  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

tion  of  his  sense-organs  and  brain  at  their  new 
rhythm,  into  a  direct  perception  of  life  as  a  whole, 
an  entity  with  a  pressure  on  its  environment,  a  single 
slowly-evolving  form,  a  motion  and  direction. 

He  put  the  lever  to  its  limit:  the  rhythm  of  the 
cosmos  altered  again  in  relation  to  his  own.  He  had 
an  extraordinary  sense  of  being  on  the  verge  of  a 
revelation.  The  universe — that  was  the  same;  but 
what  he  experienced  of  it  was  totally  different.  He 
had  immediate  experience  of  the  waxing  and  wan- 
ing of  suns,  of  the  condensation  of  nebulae,  the 
slowing  down  and  speeding  up  of  evolutionary  pro- 
cesses. 

The  curious,  apparently  telepathic  sense  which  he 
had  had  of  the  mental  side  of  existence  was  intensi- 
fied. Through  it,  the  world  began  to  be  perceived 
as  a  single  Being,  with  all  its  parts  in  interaction. 
The  shadowy  lineaments  of  this  being  were  half  seen 
by  his  mental  vision — vast,  colossal,  slowly  chang- 
ing; but  they  appeared  only  to  disappear  again,  like 
a  picture  in  the  fire. 

Strive  as  he  might,  he  could  not  see  its  real  like- 
ness. Now  it  appeared  benign;  at  its  next  dim  reap- 
pearance there  would  be  a  feeling  of  capricious  irre- 
sponsibility about  it:  at  another  instant  it  was  cold, 
remote;  once  or  twice  terrible,  impending  over  and 
filling  everything  with  a  black  demoniacal  power 
which  brought  only  horror  with  it. 

If   he    could    but    accelerate    the    machine!     He 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  199 

wanted  to  know — to  know  whether  this  phantom 
were  a  reality,  to  know  above  all  if  it  were  a  thing  of 
evil  or  of  good:  and  he  could  not  know  unless  he 
could  advance  that  last  final  step  necessary  lo  fuse 
the  rhythm  of  separate  events  into  the  sensation  of 
the  single  whole. 

He  sat  straining  all  his  faculties:  the  machine 
whirred  and  rocked:  but  in  vain.  And  at  last,  feel- 
ing desperately  hungry,  for  he  had  forgotten  to  take 
food  with  him,  he  gradually  brought  back  the  lever 
to  its  neutral-point. 

******* 

Of  course,  Mr.  Wells  would  have  done  it  much 
better  than  this. 

******* 

And  then  there  would  have  to  be  an  ending. 
I  think  the  newspaper  man  would  take  his  oppor- 
tunity to  slink  off  into  the  laboratory  and  get  on 
the  machine  with  the  idea  of  making  a  scoop  for 
his  paper;  .  .  .  and  then  he  would  put  the  lever 
in  too  violently,  and  be  thrown  backwards.  His 
head  hit  the  corner  of  a  bench,  and  he  remained 
stunned;  but  by  evil  chance,  the  handles  of  the  ma- 
chine still  made  connection  with  his  body  after  the 
fall.  The  machine  was  making  him  adjust  his 
rhythm  to  that  of  light;  so  that  he  was  living  at  an 
appalling  rate.  He  had  gone  into  the  laboratory  late 
at   night.     Next   morning   they   found   him— dead: 


200  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

and  dead  of  senile  decay — grey-haired,  shrivelled, 
atrophic. 

Then  of  course  the  machine  is  smashed  up;  and 
Mr.  Wells  begins  to  write  another  book. 

******* 

I  have  spent  so  much  time  in  frivolous  discussion 
of  rhythm  and  size  and  commonplaces  that  1  have 
not  pointed  out  another  fundamental  fact  of  biolog- 
ical relativity — to  wit,  that  we  are  but  parochial 
creatures  endowed  only  with  sense-organs  giving  in- 
formation about  the  agencies  normally  found  in  our 
own  little  environment.  Mind  without  the  objects  of 
mind  is  the  very  Chimaera  bombinating  in  vacuo. 

Out  of  all  the  ether  waves  we  are  sensitive  to  an 
octave  as  light,  and  some  few  others  as  heat.  X-rays 
and  ultra-violet  destroy  us,  but  we  know  nothing 
about  them  until  they  begin  to  give  us  pain;  while 
the  low  swell  of  Hertzian  waves  passes  by  and 
through  us  harmless  and  unheeded.  Electrical  sense 
again  we  have  none. 

Imagine  what  it  would  be  for  inhabitants  of  an- 
other planet  where  changes  in  Hertzian  waves  were 
the  central,  pivotal  changes  in  environment,  where 
accordingly  life  had  become  sensitive  to  "wireless" 
and  to  nought  else  save  perhaps  touch — imagine  such 
beings  broadcast  upon  the  face  of  the  Earth.  With 
a  little  practice  and  ingenuity  they  would  no  doubt 
be  able  to  decipher  the  messages  floating  through  our 
atmosphere,  would  feel  the  rhythms  of  the  Black 
Hamitic  Band  transmitting  Jazz  to  a  million  homes, 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  201 

and  be  able  to  follow,  night  by  night,  the  soporific  but 
benevolent  fairy-stories  of  Uncle  Archibald.  1  won- 
der what  they  would  make  of  it  all.  They  would  at 
intervals,  of  course,  be  bumping  into  things  and  peo- 
ple. But  would  touch  and  radio-sense  alone  make 
our  world  intelligible?     I  wonder.  .  .  . 

When  we  begin  trying  to  quit  our  anthropocentry 
and  discover  what  the  world  might  be  like  if  only  we 
had  other  organs  of  body  and  mind  for  its  assaying, 
we  must  flounder  and  bump  in  a  not  dissimilar  fash- 
ion. 

Even  the  few  senses  that  we  do  possess  are  deter- 
mined by  our  environment.  Sweet  things  are  pleas- 
ant to  us:  sugar  is  sweet:  so  is  "sugar  of  lead" — 
lead  acetate;  sugar  is  nutritious,  lead  acetate  a 
poison.  The  biologist  will  conclude,  and  with  per- 
fect reason,  that  if  sugar  was  as  rare  as  lead  acetate 
in  nature,  lead  acetate  as  common  as  sugar,  we  should 
then  abominate  and  reject  sweet  things  as  emphat- 
ically as  we  now  do  filth  or  acids  or  over-hot  liquids. 

But  I  must  pause,  and  find  a  moral  for  my  tale; 
for  all  will  agree  that  a  moral  has  been  so  long  out 
of  fashion  that  it  is  now  fast  becoming  fashionable 
again. 

Every  schoolboy,  as  Macaulay  would  say,  knows 
William  of  Occam's  Razor — that  philosophical  tool 
of  admirable  properties: — "Entia  non  multiplicanda 
praeter  necessitatem." 

We  want  another  razor — a  Relativist  Razor;  and 
with  that  we  will  carry  out  barbering  operations 


202  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

worthy  of  another  Shaving  of  Shagpat :  we  will  shave 
the  Absolute. 

The  hoary  Absolute,  enormous  and  venerable, 
grey-bearded  and  grey-locked — he  sits  enthroned, 
wielding  tremendous  power,  filling  young  minds  with 
fear  and  awe. 

Up,  barbers,  and  at  him !  Heat  the  water  of  your 
enthusiasm:  lather  those  disguising  appurtenances. 
See  the  tufts  collapse  into  the  white  foam — feel  the 
hairy  jungles  melt  away  before  your  steel!  And  at 
the  end,  when  the  last  hair  falls,  you  will  wipe  away 
the  lather,  and  look  upon  that  face  arki  see — ah,  what 
indeed? 

I  will  not  be  so  banal  as  to  attempt  to  describe  that 
sight  in  detail.  You  will  have  seen  it  already  in 
your  mind's  eye:  "or  else"  (to  quote  Mr.  Belloc) — 
"or  else  you  will  not;  I  cannot  be  positive  which." 
If  not,  you  never  will;  if  yes,  what  need  to  waste 
more  of  the  compositor's  time?  But  of  him  who 
forges  that  razor,  who  arms  those  barbers,  who  gives 
them  courage  for  their  colossal  task,  of  him  shall  a 
new  Lucretius  sing. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Belloc,  H.    "The  Bad  Child's  Book  of  Beasts." 
Bergson,  H.     "Time  and  Free-Will." 
Carroll,  L.     "Alice  in  Wonderland." 

"Alice  Through  the  Looking  Glass." 

Clerk  Maxwell.     "Collected  Papers." 


PHILOSOPHIC   ANTS  203 

Einstein.     See  Kant. 

Hegel.     See  Einstein. 

Kant.     See  Hegel. 

Lear,  E.     "Nonsense  Songs  and  Stories." 

Lucretius.     "De  Rerum  Natura." 

Macaulay,  Lord.     "Essays." 

Mee,  A.     "Children's  Encyclopaedia." 

Meredith,  G.     "The  Shaving  of  Shagpat." 

Occam,  W.  de.     "Opera  Omnia." 

Shapley.     Proc.  Nat.  Ac.  Sci.,  6,  204. 

Swift,  J.     "Gulliver's  Travels." 

Wells,  H.  G.     "The  New  Accelerator." 

Wheeler,  W.  M.    "Ants"  (Columbia  University  Series). 


VI 

RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA 
OF   GOD 


GODS 

Surprised  by  doubt,  and  longing  but  to  know, 
I  asked  of  men  and  books  what  God  might  be: — 
"An  immanent  spirit,  clothed  with  the  world  we  see" — 

"A  King  of  kings,  ruler  of  all  below" — 

"Pure  Love" — "A  golden  calf  set  up  for  show" — 
"A  jealous  chief  and  tribal  sectary" — 
"Figment  of  fear  and  Man's  servility" — 

"The  final  Judge  that  dooms  to  joy  or  woe"  .  .  . 

I  turned  away;  and  found  my  God  alone. 

God  is  the  world— yet  captive  in  our  thought: 
Our  thought— when  it  the  head  of  the  world  is  grown: 

Love — with  what  love  we  to  ourselves  have  taught. 
The  Soul  must  incarnate  Divinity, 
And  God  in  each  anew  must  builded  be. 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA 
OF   GOD 

"Du  gleichst  dem  Geist,  den  du  begreifst." 

— Goethe. 

"Nowadays,  matters  of  national  defence,  of  politics,  of  religion, 
are  still  too  important  for  Knowledge,  and  remain  subjects  for 
certitude;  that  is  to  say,  in  them  we  still  prefer  the  comfort  of 
instinctive  belief  because  we  have  not  learnt  adequately  to  value 
the  capacity  to  foretell." — W.  Trotter. 

NO  one  who  has  read  Flaubert's  Tentation  de 
St.  Antoine  will  be  likely  to  forget  that  amaz- 
ing procession  of  Gods,  hundreds  upon  hun- 
dreds, in  every  diversity  of  form,  defiling  past  the  vi- 
sionary Saint  to  topple  over  into  the  abyss  of  noth- 
ingness and  be  for  ever  destroyed — the  doomed  and 
outworn  divinities  of  man's  childhood  and  adoles- 
cence, put  away  as  he  came  to  maturity.  "Man 
created  God  in  his  own  image,"  wrote  the  irrepres- 
sible pen  of  Voltaire;  and  if  it  is  not  always  true  that 
Gods  have  been  in  his  own  image,  but  also  in  the 
image  of  animals  and  monsters,  of  embodied  fears 
and  hopes,  it  is  indubitable  that  man  has  created 
God  after  God,  only  to  throw  them  on  the  scrap- 
heap  as  he  outgrows  them,  like  a  child  rejecting  his 
old  toys  for  new. 

Indubitable — in  a  sense;  indubitable  that  he  has 
given  each  of  them  their  peculiar  and  characteristic 

207 


208  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

form,  endowed  this  and  that  God  with  different  quali- 
ties. But  there  is  another  part  which  he  has  not 
created,  which  he  can  only  perceive,  mould,  clothe. 
The  raw  material  of  Divinity  and  its  elemental  attri- 
butes are  given — man  can  but  take  it  or  leave  it; 
and,  what  is  more,  it  is  difficult  for  him  to  leave  it. 
It  IS  given  as  the  raw  material  and  elemental  attri- 
butes of  life  are  given,  and  the  evolutionary  process 
can  but  take  them.  Man  moulds  and  forms;  but 
evolution  has  no  more  created  living  matter  than  he 
Divinity. 

******  !»5 

I  propose,  then,  to  lay  down  as  my  main  point  that 
the  idea  of  God  is  an  inevitable  product  of  biological 
evolution,  arising  when  the  human  type  of  mind  first 
came  into  being,  and  taking  shape  and  form  as  a 
definite  God  or  Gods.  That  the  Gods  who  thus 
arise,  although  of  course  they  play  a  role  in  the  affairs 
of  the  human  species  only,  have  a  definite  biological 
function.  That  the  term  God  can  still  be  properly 
and  profitably  employed  to  denote  a  certain  complex 
of  phenomena,  with  a  certain  function  in  human  evo- 
lution. 

What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  saying  that  the  idea  of 
God  arises  inevitably  with  the  appearance  of  man 
upon  the  evolutionary  scene?  How  can  the  appear- 
ance of  man  account  for  such  a  curious  phenomenon? 

With  man,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  life 
upon  the  earth,  an  organism  appeared  capable  of  gen- 
eralizing, of  framing  concepts,  and  of  communicat- 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  209 

ing  them  to  his  fellows.  Through  sense-organs  and 
brain,  an  organism  reflects  in  its  mind  some  of  the 
events  of  the  world  outside,  creates  some  sort  of  a 
microcosm  over  against  the  macroscosm.  But  the 
animal  with  no  more  than  associative  memory  can 
at  best  create  a  haphazard  microcosm,  a  mere  cinema 
record,  and  incomplete  at  that,  of  the  most  elemen- 
tary organization;  while  all  one  can  say  of  its  power 
of  profiting  by  experience  is  that  a  certain  primitive 
plot  is  thus  provided  for  the  series  of  adventures 
which  make  up  the  scenario. 

With  an  organism  like  man,  however,  in  which  to 
the  faculty  of  associative  memory  there  has  been 
superadded  the  power  of  framing  concepts  and  of 
accumulating  experience  by  tradition,  the  picture  is 
altogether  changed.  The  microcosm  becomes  more 
highly  organized;  from  rough-and-tumble  cinema  it 
develops  into  an  elaborate  drama,  whose  plot  is 
knotted  up  in  the  same  general  way  as  that  of  the 
great  macrocosmic  drama  unrolling  itself  outside. 
Microcosm  images  macrocosm  more  nearly,  both  in 
its  form  and  in  its  scope.  As  result  of  this,  life  is 
for  the  first  time  enabled  in  man's  person  to  frame 
some  general  ideas  of  the  outer  world.  Not  only  is 
it  enabled,  it  cannot  help  but  do  so.  The  outer  world 
is  there;  it  impinges  through  man's  sense-organs  on 
his  mind,  and  his  mind  is  so  constructed  that,  if  it 
thinks  at  all,  it  must  think  in  general  terms. 

For  the  first  time,  life  becomes  aware  of  something 
more  than  a  set  of  events;  it  becomes  aware  of  a 


\ 


210  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

system  of  powers  operating  in  events.  These  powers 
(to  use  a  general,  and  what  is  intended  to  be  a  non- 
committal, term)  are  in  constant  action  upon  man's 
life.  There  is  a  power  in  the  sun,  a  power  in  the 
storm,  in  the  growth  of  crops,  in  wild  beasts,  in 
strange  tribes,  in  the  unrealized  recesses  of  man's 
own  heart;  and  in  the  course  of  his  life  man  is 
brought  into  contact  with  these  powers,  which  may 
act  with  him  or  against  him.  Man  frames  his  own 
idea  of  these  powers;  and  once  that  idea  is  framed, 
it  exerts  an  effect  upon  the  rest  of  his  ideas,  upon  his 
emotions,  upon  his  conduct.  The  more  strongly  the 
idea  is  held,  the  greater  the  effect. 

But  the  idea  may  obviously  be  held  and  organized 
in  many  different  ways.  It  is  when  the  idea  is  or- 
ganized in  one  particular  way  that  we  call  it  religious. 
We  call  it  religious  when  on  the  one  hand  it  involves 
some  recognition  of  powers  operating  so  as  to  under- 
lie the  general  operations  of  the  world;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  it  involves  the  emotions.  It  must 
involve  the  idea  of  the  general  powers  operating  in 
the  outer  world;  so  that  an  emotional  reaction  en- 
tirely limited  to  a  single  human  being,  or  to  beauty, 
or  to  a  single  event,  is  not  religious.  And  it  must 
involve  the  emotional  nature  of  man,  so  that  a 
purely  intellectual  investigation  of  the  powers  in 
operation,  or  a  purely  practical  response,  a  purely 
moral  reaction  to  them,  is  again  not  religious. 

^h  T*  'F  *F  ^h  H*  ^r 

In  primitive  societies,  as  the  studies  of  a  Frazer 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF    GOD  211 

or  a  Rivers  have  shown  us,  the  whole  of  life  is  en- 
meshed with  religion,  and  there  is  scarcely  an  activity 
of  man  which  is  not  spun  round  with  religious  emo- 
tion and  ritual.  Very  often  the  idea  of  God  has  not 
in  this  stage  been  clearly  formulated;  there  is  simply 
a  notion  of  power,  of  mysterious  influence,  sometimes 
partly  crystallized  round  a  primitive  deity.  Later, 
however,  the  power  became  frankly  anthropomor- 
phic, and  Gods  came  into  being — many  or  one.  Man 
had  projected  the  idea  of  that  active  agency  he  knew 
best — human  personality — into  his  idea  of  cosmic 
powers. 

Into  the  God  thus  fashioned  there  are  always  pro- 
jected, to  greater  or  less  degree,  the  ideals  of  the  com- 
munity; and  thus,  at  a  certain  stage  of  development, 
we  find  definitely  tribal  Gods.  Here  the  biological 
function  of  Gods  becomes  extremely  obvious.  The 
God,  by  his  inspired  prophets  and  priests,  orders  the 
destruction  of  his  rivals — the  false  Gods  of  neigh- 
bouring tribes — or  of  his  enemies,  the  members  of 
those  tribes. 

The  people  of  the  tribe,  however  the  result  may 
have  been  brought  about,  do  as  a  matter  of  fact  find 
themselves,  all  unconsciously,  caught  up  in  the  sys- 
tem which  they  and  their  forefathers  have  made. 
They  have  fashioned  their  God  so  that  their  inmost 
life  is  joined  to  him.  When  they  sin,  they  fear  him; 
when  they  look  into  their  own  hearts  to  take  stock  of 
their  ultimate  ideals,  they  find  that  these  are  at- 
tached,  through   the   impalpable   but    infinitely   re- 


212  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

sistant  fibres  of  tradition,  of  childish  memory  and  of 
education,  to  him;  he  is  on  their  side  against  their 
enemies,  so  that  their  advantage  is  on  the  whole  his. 

Whatever,  therefore,  arouses  the  idea  of  God  in 
their  minds  will  send  messages  into  every  corner  of 
their  being.  And  if  they  can  be  firmly  persuaded 
that  God  wishes  something  done,  the  call  will  pull 
at  their  heart-strings  and  bring  them  to  convinced 
and  united  action. 

The  most  familiar  example  of  this  type  of  effect 
is  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  the  Old 
Testament.  But  even  to-day  such  tribal  ideas  are 
not  extinct:  an  educated  and  charming  lady  said  to 
me  during  the  war — "I  am  convinced  that  if  Jesus 
Christ  were  alive  to-day  He  would  be  fighting  on  the 
side  of  the  Allies."  .  .  . 

******* 

In  our  further  analysis  we  must  carefully  distin- 
guish between  the  outer  and  inner  components  of  the 
idea  of  God.  The  outer  components  are  the  powers 
acting  upon  man.  Some  of  these  are  inorganic — 
storms,  winds,  floods,  the  sun  and  moon;  others  are 
organic — wild  beasts,  pestilence,  crops,  and  fruits, 
domesticated  animals;  others  again  are  human — per- 
sonal or  national  enemies,  the  community  in  which 
the  individual  lives.  And  they  may  act  upon  man's 
body  or  upon  his  mind.  The  sun  warms  his  body, 
but  makes  an  impression  on  his  mind  as  well.  The 
practice  of  astrology  shows  what  power  can  be  ex- 
erted on  the  mind  by  quite  imaginary  properties  of 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF    GOD  213 

external  reality.  But,  whatever  we  may  think  of 
these  outer  components,  there  they  are,  and  they  do 
affect  us  for  better  or  for  worse.  Before  such  a 
heterogeneous  assemblage  as  is  constituted  by  the 
outer  components  can  operate  as  a  single  idea,  can 
deserve  a  single  name  such  as  God,  they  must  be 
elaborately  organized. 

The  contribution  to  the  idea  of  God  from  within, 
from  the  mind  of  man  himself,  is  its  form;  and  this 
form  is  the  outcome  of  a  process  of  mental  organiza- 
tion every  bit  as  real  as  the  physical  organization 
occurring  in  the  unborn  embryo. 

The  essential  thing  about  both  is,  as  we  have  in- 
dicated, that  unity  should  arise  in  spite  of  diversity, 
and  the  resulting  entity — organism  in  the  one  case, 
organized  idea  in  the  other — should  thus  be  able  to 
act  as  a  single  whole. 

The  system  of  ideas  which  man  holds  concerning 
external  powers  may  be  thus  organized  by  thinking 
of  it  in  terms  of  magic,  of  "influence,"  manifesting  it- 
self in  different  ways  in  different  operations  of  Na- 
ture; or  in  terms  of  personality,  the  manifestations 
of  power  being  supposed  to  result  from  the  activities 
of  a  being  or  beings  more  or  less  similar  to  ourselves; 
or  it  may  be  organized,  as  we  shall  see,  on  more  sci- 
entific lines,  by  carefully  pruning  away  all  parts  of 
it  which  are  either  definitely  the  mere  product  of  our 
own  imaginations,  or  else  are  not  proven. 

Thus  what  we  have  called  the  raw  material  of 
Divinity  is  given  in  the  outer  forces  of  nature,  which 


214  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

not  only  act  upon  man  as  they  act  upon  all  organ- 
isms, but  are  by  him  perceived  so  to  act  in  a  way 
special  and  peculiar  to  man  alone. 

But,  being  so  perceived,  they  are  inevitably  taken 
up  into  his  mental  life  and  made  part  of  his  mental 
organization.  They  are 'often  perceived  emotionally 
— to  take  the  simplest  examples,  pestilence  with  hor- 
ror, storm  with  fear,  the  growing  of  crops  with  grati- 
tude. They  are  bound  to  enter  into  relation  with 
his  emotions,  with  his  ideals  and  hopes;  bound  also 
to  be  in  some  degree  generalized  intellectually.  When 
thus  emotionally  and  intellectually  built  up  so  as  to 
form  a  coherent  and  unitary  idea,  then  only  do  they 
deserve  the  name  of  a  God. 

In  parenthesis,  let  us  make  it  quite  clear  that  we 
are  speaking  of  God  and  Gods  as  they  operate  in  hu- 
man affairs,  as  they  can  be  classified  by  the  anthro- 
pologist, analysed  by  the  philosopher,  experienced  by 
the  mystic.  These  have  always  been  constituted  as 
we  have  described — as  a  particular  idea  of  the  pow- 
ers of  nature,  the  cosmic  forces  taking  shape  through 
the  moulding  and  organizing  capacity  of  human 
thought,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  as  an  interpretation  and 
unification  of  outer  and  inner  reality.  The  Absolute 
God,  on  the  other  hand,  may  be  one — may,  in  fact, 
operate  as  a  unitary  whole  in  the  same  sense  as  this 
extraordinary  product  of  the  evolutionary  process, 
this  anthropological  God;  but  we  can  never  know  it 
as  such  in  the  same  sense  as  we  know  a  person  to  be 
one. 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  215 

This  may  be  illustrated  by  a  common  fallacy— 
the  ascription  of  personality  to  God  on  the  ground 
that  a  purpose  exists  in  the  universe.  Paley  saw 
proof  of  this  purpose  in  adaptations  among  organ- 
isms. Modern  theologians,  driven  from  this  posi- 
tion by  Darwin,  take  refuge  with  Bergson  in  the  fact 
of  biological  progress.  But  this,  too,  can  be  shown 
to  be  as  natural  and  inevitable  a  product  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  as  is  adaptation,  and  to  be  no  more 
mysterious  than,  for  instance,  the  increase  in  eflec- 
tiveness  both  of  armour-piercing  projectile  and 
armour-plate  during  the  last  century.  The  time  has 
gone  by  when  a  Paley  could  advance  his  "carpenter" 
view  of  God;  when  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society 
could  be  sure  of  general  approval,  as  could  D.  Front 
in  his  Bridgewater  Treatise,  with  a  work  entitled 
Chemistry,  Meteorology,  and  the  Fuyiction  of  Di- 
gestion, considered  with  reference  to  Natural  The- 
ology, or  when  a  distinguished  geologist  like  Buck- 
land  (almost  foreshadowing  later  writers  of  a  cer- 
tain type  on  labour  questions)  could  ascribe  to  a 
Beneficent  Designer  the  existence  of  Carnivora, 
as  a  means  to  the  increase  of  the  "Aggregate  of  Ani- 
mal Enjoyment,"  and  solemnly  open  a  sentence  such 
as  "while  each  suffering  individual  is  soon  relieved 
from  pain,  it  contributes  its  enfeebled  carcass  to  the 
support  of  its  carnivorous  benefactors." 

No — purpose  is  a  psychological  term;  and  to  as- 
cribe purpose  to  a  process  merely  because  its  results 
are  somewhat  similar  to  those  of  a  true  purposeful 


216  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

process,  is  completely  unjustified,  and  a  mere  projec- 
tion of  our  own  ideas  into  the  economy  of  nature. 
Where  we  experience  only  phenomena  of  one  order 
we  cannot  hope  to  reach  behind  them  to  phenomena 
of  another  order,  or  to  the  Absolute. 

The  ground  is  now  cleared  for  our  real  investiga- 
tion— our  inquiry  into  the  task  which  Rationalism 
has  before  it  in  finding  how  best  what  we  have  called 
the  raw  material  of  Divinity  may  be  organized  by 
the  mind's  activity,  how  best  clothed  with  word  or 
symbol  to  make  it  more  the  common  property  of 
mankind  as  a  whole. 

The  current  Christian  conception  of  God  is  of  a 
person  who  is  also  the  creator  and  the  ruler  of  the 
universe.  This  person  has  certain  attributes — is 
omnipotent,  omniscient,  and  somehow,  in  spite  of  all 
the  unhappiness  and  squalor  and  cruelty  in  the  world, 
all-loving.  He  has  personal  qualities — he  created 
the  universe,  and  all  that  is  in  it;  he  takes  pleasure 
in  being  worshipped;  is  displeased  when  men  or 
women  neglect  him,  or  commit  crimes  or  sins;  takes 
pity  on  the  follies  and  sufferings  of  man;  and  was 
so  moved  by  them  (albeit  after  a  very  considerable 
period  had  elapsed  since  man  had  first  appeared  upon 
the  scene)  that  he  sent  his  son  into  the  world  as  a 
redeemer.  (For  simplicity's  sake,  I  omit  all  refer- 
ence to  the  complexities  of  Trinitarian  doctrine, 
which,  however  important  in  distinguishing  Chris- 
tianity from  other  religions  envisaging  an  omnipo- 
tent personal  God,  do  not  affect  the  essential  point  at 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  217 

issue.)  Further,  he  grants  petitions,  reveals  himself 
to  certain  chosen  persons,  and  is  enthroned  in  a  some- 
what elusive  heaven,  where  he  is  (or  will  be  after  the 
Day  of  Judgment — opinions  seem  to  dilTer  somewhat 
on  the  subject)  surrounded  by  the  immortal  souls  of 
the  elect. 

Now  this  view,  or  any  view  of  God  as  a  personal 
being,  is  becoming  frankly  untenable.  The  difficulty 
of  understanding  the  functions  of  a  personal  ruler 
in  a  universe  which  the  march  of  knowledge  is  show- 
ing us  ever  more  clearly  as  self-ordered  and  self- 
ordering  in  every  minutest  detail  is  becoming  more 
and  more  apparent.  Either  a  personal  God  is  a  ruler 
without  power,  or  he  is  the  universe.  In  the  former 
case  he  becomes  a  mere  fly  on  the  wheel ;  in  the  latter 
we  revert  to  a  frank  pantheism,  in  which  the  idea 
of  a  personal  Being  can  no  longer  properly  be  up- 
held. A  personal  creation  of  the  world,  in  any  rea- 
sonable sense  of  that  term,  is  now  meaningless  except 
for  a  hypothetical  creation  of  the  original  substance 
of  the  cosmos  in  the  first  instance.  Creation  of  earth 
and  stars,  plants,  animals,  and  man — Darwin  swept 
the  last  vestiges  of  that  into  the  waste-paper  basket 
of  outworn  imaginations,  already  piled  high  with  the 
debris  of  earlier  ages.  After  the  psychological  in- 
sight which  the  last  half-century  has  given  us.  mir- 
acles have  ceased  to  be  miracles,  and  have  become 
either  delusions,  or,  more  frequently,  unusual  phe- 
nomena for  which  a  cause  has  not  yet  been  found. 
The  immutability  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  matter 


218  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

and  motion,  more  particularly  the  grand  generali- 
zation of  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the  substitu- 
tion by  science  of  an  orderly  for  a  disorderly  concep- 
tion of  nature,  make  it  impossible  to  think  of  occa- 
sional interference  by  God  with  this  world's  affairs. 
Accordingly  the  value  of  petitionary  prayer  falls  to 
the  ground.  Revelation  and  inspiration  have  re- 
solved themselves  into  exceptional  mental  states,  and 
are  no  longer  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  telepathy  be- 
tween divine  and  human  minds.  If  we  reflect,  we 
see  that  all  these  intellectual  difficulties  in  modern 
theology  arise  from  the  advance  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge, which  has  shown  that  the  older  ideas  of  God 
were  only  symbolic,  and  therefore  false  when  the  at- 
tempt was  made  to  give  real  value  to  them. 

That  being  the  quagmire  in  which  traditional 
Christian  theology  is  floundering,  it  behoves  us  to 
discuss  the  opposite  side  of  the  question,  and  to  see 
whether  the  very  advance  of  science  which  has 
seemed  to  exert  only  a  destructive  influence  may  not 
have  made  it  possible  to  build  up  new  and  sounder 
conceptions  of  fundamental  religious  ideas. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  conception  of  God 
always  represents  man's  idea  of  the  powers  operating 
in  the  universe;  that  it  has  two  components — the 
outer  consisting  of  these  powers  so  far  as  they  are 
known  to  man,  the  inner  consisting  in  the  mode  in 
which  the  conception  is  organized  and  the  way  it  is 
related  to  the  rest  of  the  personality.  It  is  obvious 
that  both  man's  knowledge  of  the  cosmic  powers  as 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  219 

well  as  his  method  of  organizing  them  in  his  mind 
can  grow  and  change;  and  man's  Gods  can — and  do 
— grow  and  change  accordingly. 

The  growth  of  science  in  the  last  few  centuries  has 
radically  altered  our  knowledge  of  the  outer  world. 
It  has  shown  us,  in  the  first  place,  a  fundamental 
unity  of  all  phenomena,  however  apparently  diverse. 
It  has  shown  us  the  inorganic  part  of  the  cosmos  pur- 
suing a  direction — the  progressive  degradation  of 
energy — which,  if  it  is  carried  to  its  limit,  will  result 
in  the  extinction  not  only  of  life,  but  of  all  activity. 
It  has  next  shown  us  the  organic  part,  sprung  from 
the  inorganic  but  running  a  different  course,  ascend- 
ing during  evolutionary  time  to  increasing  heights  of 
complexity  and  to  increasing  control  over  its  inor- 
ganic environment. 

Finally,  we  have  the  psychozoic  or  human  portion 
— that  minute  fraction  of  the  cosmos  which  vet  is 
of  a  preponderant  importance,  since  it  defmitely 
represents  the  highest  level  yet  reached  by  evolution- 
ary progress.  In  this  sphere  mind  is  the  dominant 
partner,  biologically  speaking,  in  the  mind-matter 
partnership;  evolution  can  begin  to  be  conscious  in- 
stead of  fortuitous;  and  true  values  arise  which,  in- 
corporated in  ideals  and  purposes,  exert  an  effect 
upon  events. 

As  regards  our  own  mental  organization,  psycho- 
logical science  has  recently  shown  us  the  enormous 
importance  of  what  we  may  call  the  extra-person:il 
portion  of  our  mind — all  that  which  is  normally  sub- 


220  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

conscious,  or  has  not  been  during  our  mental  growth 
incorporated  to  form  an  integral  part  of  our  private 
personality.  But  this  extra-personal  part  of  the 
mind  may  from  time  to  time  irrupt  into  the  personal, 
and  does  normally  do  so  at  some  period  of  life.  It 
is  the  merit  of  psychology  to  have  shown  the  true  na- 
ture of  this  relationship  between  personal  and  extra- 
personal,  which  was  in  the  past  a  source  of  an  infinity 
of  mistaken  ideas — revelation,  inspiration,  posses- 
sion, direct  communion  with  angels,  saints,  gods,  or 
devils,  and  so  forth. 

Thus  the  powers  operating  in  the  cosmos  are, 
though  unitary,  yet  subdivisible;  and,  though  subdi- 
visible, yet  related.  There  are  the  vast  powers  of  in- 
organic nature,  neutral  or  hostile  to  man.  Yet  they 
gave  birth  to  evolving  life,  whose  development, 
though  blind  and  fortuitous,  has  tended  in  the  same 
general  direction  as  our  own  conscious  desires  and 
ideals,  and  so  gives  us  an  external  sanction  for  our 
directional  activities.  This  again  gave  birth  to  hu- 
man mind,  which,  in  the  race,  is  changing  the  course 
of  evolution  by  acceleration,  by  the  substitution  of 
new  methods  for  old,  and  by  introducing  values 
which  are  ultimate  for  the  human  species;  and,  in 
the  individual,  provides,  in  the  interplay  of  conscious 
and  subconscious,  unbounded  possibilities  of  the  in- 
vasion of  the  ordinary  and  humdrum  personality  of 
every  day  by  ideas  apparently  infinite,  emotions  the 
most  disinterested  and  overwhelming. 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF    GOD  221 

Still  Other  light  has  of  late  years  been  thrown  by 
psychology  upon  the  inner  component  of  the  idea  of 
God.  Recent  work  has  shown,  for  instance,  that  the 
mind,  unless  deliberately  corrected  and  trained,  tends 
to  think  in  terms  of  symbols  instead  of  along  the 
more  arduous  paths  of  intellectual  reasoning,  tends 
to  explain  the  unknown  in  terms  of  the  known,  tends 
accordingly  to  project  the  familiar  ideas  of  its  own 
personality  as  symbols  for  the  explanation  of  the 
most  varied  phenomena.  The  science  of  compara- 
tive religion  has  shown  us  an  early  stage  of  religious 
belief  in  which  but  one  idea  held  sway — the  idea  of 
a  magical  influence  residing  in  all  things  potent  for 
good  or  ill:  the  projection  was  so  complete  that  no 
distinction  whatever  was  made  between  the  personal 
and  the  impersonal.  Later,  the  idea  of  particular 
divine  beings  or  Gods  arose;  and  in  early  stages  man 
still  continued  to  project  not  only  his  own  passions, 
but  even  his  own  form,  into  these  divinities.  The 
statement  of  Genesis  that  God  made  man  in  his  own 
image  is  in  reality  an  admission  of  the  con\-erse  proc- 
ess. Still  later,  the  divinity  was  purged  of  the  gross- 
ness  of  human  form  and  members,  and,  gradually, 
of  characteristically  human  passions:  but  God  re- 
mained personal,  although  the  personality  was  now- 
organized  chiefly  of  ideals. 

There  is,  however,  no  reason  whatever  to  admit 
that  personality  is  a  genuine  characteristic  of  any 
knowable  God;  but  every  reason  to  suspect  that  it 
is,  as  a  matter  of  hard  fact,  merely  another  product 


222  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

of  this  property  of  projection  so  strong  in  the  hu- 
man mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  analysis  of  religious  experi- 
ence as  a  phenomenon,  as  something  equally  worthy 
of  patient  and  scientific  study  as  the  gas-laws  or  the 
methods  of  evolution,  shows  that  the  powers  which 
move  in  the  universe,  when  organized  by  thought 
into  a  God,  are  apprehended  by  the  majority  of  the 
great  mystics  and  those  to  whom  religious  experience 
has  been  richly  granted  as  in  some  way  personal. 
Although,  if  our  line  of  argument  is  valid,  this  will 
be  partly  due  to  a  projection  of  the  idea  of  personal- 
ity into  the  idea  of  God,  yet  it  is  clearly  in  part  due 
to  the  idea  of  God  being  organised  by  our  mental  ac- 
tivity to  be  of  the  same  general  type  as  is  a  normal 
personality — as  something  into  which  concepts  of 
power,  of  knowledge,  and  of  feeling  and  will  all  enter, 
with  such  interconnections  between  its  parts  that, 
like  a  personality,  all  of  its  resources  are  capable  of 
mobilization  at  any  one  point.  It  will  be  one  of  the 
great  constructive  tasks  of  psychology  to  ascertain 
just  how  such  a  conception  is  organized,  and  how  it 
operates  to  produce  the  experiences,  often  of  over- 
powering intensity  and  lasting  value,  which  as  a  mat- 
ter of  record  it  often  does.^ 

Put  broadly  and  roughly,  there  are,  then,  three 
main  accounts  possible,  or  at  any  rate  actually  found 
in  occidental  civilization  to-day,  of  the  phenomena 

1  See  W.  James,  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience;  E.  Under- 
bill, Essentials  of  Mysticism. 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF    GOD  223 

generally  known  as  religious.  The  first  is  that  of  the 
out-and-out  sceptic — that  they  are  all  illusions,  imag- 
inations of  the  childhood  of  the  race.  This  is  an  ex- 
treme view  which  I  do  not  feel  called  upon  to  discuss. 
The  second  is  the  view  of  almost  every  existing  re- 
I'igious  denomination  in  Europe — that  God  is  a  per- 
sonal being.  And  the  third  is  one,  only  just  begin- 
ning to  take  shape,  which  1  have  endeavoured,  with 
every  consciousness  of  inadequacy,  to  outline — the 
account  made  possible  by  a  radically  scientific  view 
of  the  universe. 

Those  who  adopt  the  third  attitude  believe  that 
the  second  is  a  purely  symbolic  and  not  very  accurate 
presentation  of  certain  fundamental  facts,  of  which 
they  are  attempting  to  give  what  seems  to  them  an 
account  which  is  closer  to  reality.  Before  the  scien- 
tific work  of  the  last  three  or  four  centuries,  it  was  im- 
possible to  attempt  what  we  may  call  a  realistic  ac- 
count of  this  nature,  so  that  symbols  were  perforce 
adopted.  In  Christian  theology  man  formulated  a 
coherent  scheme,  which,  however,  was  purely  sym- 
bolic, to  account  for  the  facts  we  have  just  been  con- 
sidering. The  chief  feature  in  any  such  scheme 
must  be  the  conception  of  the  powers  with  which 
man  feels  himself  in  relation;  and  in  this  particular 
formulation  his  conception  of  these  powers  was  that 
of  a  God  who  was  also  a  person. 

Now,  the  danger  of  symbols  and  symbolic  think- 
ing comes  when  the  symbols  are  accepted  for  real, 
and  taken  as  they  stand  for  bases  from  which  conclu- 


224  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

sions  shall  be  drawn.  The  Christian  theologians  did 
not  hesitate — why  should  they,  in  their  position? — to 
use  the  personal  nature  of  the  Deity  as  one  premiss 
in  a  whole  series  of  syllogisms,  and  to  accept  at  their 
full  face  value  the  conclusions  which  emerged  from 
these  syllogisms. 

If  a  personal  God  was  ruler  of  the  universe,  then 
he  must  be  omnipotent;  if  truly  divine,  then  omnis- 
cient; if  worthy  of  worship,  then  all-wise.  He  must 
be  capable  of  interfering  with  the  course  of  events 
by  "miracles,"  of  granting  our  prayers,  of  communi- 
cating directly  with  us,  of  deciding  our  fate  in  after- 
life. From  these  conclusions  yet  further  conclusions 
were  drawn.  If  God  revealed  himself  in  the  Bible, 
then  the  Bible  was  "true"  .  .  .  with  all  that  this  in 
its  turn  involved  as  to  our  beliefs  concerning  natural 
causation,  creation,  our  relations  with  God,  or  per- 
sonal immortality.  The  whole  scheme  was  self-con- 
sistent, and  worked  as  well  as  many  other  human 
schemes.  But  what  if  the  whole  premiss,  of  God  as 
a  personal  being,  ruler  and  father  and  judge — what  if 
this  were  not  in  fact  tenable?  Then,  of  course,  the 
whole  edifice  itself  would  come  toppling  down.  That 
is  what  is  actually  happening  to-day.  God,  as  per- 
sonal ruler,  is  being  slowly  driven  out  of  the  uni- 
verse, but  returning  as  this  organized  idea  of  which 
we  have  spoken. 

Another  cardinal  point  in  the  older  systems  has 
always  been  its  claim  to  possess  a  revelation  of  Truth 
which  is  in  some  real  ways  complete  and  absolute. 


RATIONALISM   AND  THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  225 

This  leads  us  on  immediately  to  a  subject  of  espe- 
cial interest  to  us  as  rationalists — namely,  the  rela- 
tion of  religion  to  science  and  to  free  inquiry.  Re- 
ligious beliefs,  if  they  are  really  believed  with  any 
conviction,  will  be  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  domi- 
nant beliefs,  because  by  their  nature  they  concern  the 
general  relationship  between  man  and  his  surround- 
ings, which  must  bulk  large  in  all  our  lives;  and  it  is 
matter  of  common  experience  with  what  obstinacy 
and  fanaticism  they  may  be  held.  If  therefore  a 
system  of  religious  belief  includes  the  belief  that  it 
is  revealed,  and  therefore  true  with  a  more  ultimate 
and  complete  truth  than  the  truths  of  observation  or 
experiment,  any  fact  or  idea  which  conflicts  with  any 
part  of  the  system  will  be  inevitably  treated  not  only 
as  dangerous  to  the  system,  but  as  actually  evil:  and 
this  tendency  is  reinforced  by  the  craving  of  the  aver- 
age man  for  certainty,  for  intellectual  satisfaction 
without  undue  intellectual  effort.  The  cynic  who 
said  that  beliefs  are  generally  held  with  an  intensity 
inversely  proportional  to  the  amount  of  evidence 
which  can  be  adduced  in  their  support  was  not  wholly 
or  only  cynical. 

Since,  however,  the  progress  of  modern  science,  in 
addition  to  the  discovery  of  many  wholly  new  facts, 
has  largely  consisted  in  a  proper  investigation  and  a 
revaluation  of  the  facts  subsumed  without  full  analy- 
sis into  the  symbolism  of  theology,  the  inevitable  re- 
sult has  been  for  the  two  to  fmd  each  other  in  con- 
stant antagonism.     But  be  it  noted  that  it  is  not  sci- 


226  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ence  and  religion  which  are  in  conflict,  but  science 
and  a  particular  brand  of  religion. 

The  essence  of  science  is  free  inquiry  combined 
with  experimental  testing.  The  result  is  a  body  of 
knowledge,  of  fact,  and  explanatory  theory,  which 
can  properly  be  regarded  as  established.  By  estab- 
lished, however,  we  do  not  mean  that  it  is  absolute 
or  immutable — we  expect  addition  and  modification. 
But  we  also  expect  that,  in  the  future  as  in  the  past, 
the  additions  and  alterations  will  not  involve  the 
scrapping  and  rebuilding  of  the  whole  edifice,  but 
that  it  will  continue  to  be  harmonious  with  itself,  and 
to  undergo  a  gradual  evolution.  This  has  been  so 
even  with  such  marked  changes  as  the  discovery  of 
radioactivity,  the  new  outlook  in  psychology,  or  the 
rediscovery  of  Mendelism — the  new,  after  apparent 
contradiction,  has  been  or  is  being  harmoniously  in- 
corporated and  organized  with  the  old. 

This  in  its  turn  implies  that  toleration  should  ever 
be  encouraged  by  the  scientist.  Humility  cannot  be 
genuine  if  combined  with  unsupported  dogmatic  as- 
sertion :  and  the  recognition  that  the  ideas  of  revela- 
tion and  divine  personality  are  such  dogmatic  asser- 
tions brings  a  whole  new  outlook  into  being. 

Putting  matters  in  a  nutshell,  we  can  say  that  a 
system  based  on  revelation  or  on  the  pushing  of  un- 
supported premisses  concerning  the  nature  of  God 
to  their  complete  logical  conclusions  is  bound  to  re- 
sult in  some  degree  of  hostility  to  the  pursuit  of  truth 
for  its  own  sake;  whereas  a  religious  system  basing 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF    GOD  227 

itself  on  scientific  method,  while  it  must  resign  itself 
to  being  unable  to  produce  a  complete,  ready-made, 
and  immutable  scheme,  however  beloved  of  the 
multitude  (and  indeed  so  beloved  because  it  satisfies 
a  lower  and  more  primitive  mode  of  thinking  only), 
on  the  other  hand  can  be  assured  that  its  knowledge 
and  effectiveness  will  increase,  and  that  contradic- 
tions will  resolve  themselves,  provided  that  free  in- 
quiry, free  speech,  and  tolerance  are  allowed  and 
practised.  Attempts  to  reconcile  the  old  formula- 
tion with  the  new  facts  and  ideas,  when  not  insincere, 
are  doomed  to  failure  because  the  premisses  of  the 
two  systems  are  different. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  perhaps  point  out  some  of 
the  bearings  of  such  a  change.  In  the  first  place,  the 
change  in  our  conception  of  God  necessitates  the 
stressing  of  religious  experience,  as  such,  as  against 
belief  in  particular  dogma,  or  in  the  efficacy  of  spe- 
cial ritual. 

Secondly,  it  emphasizes  the  need  for  tolerance  and 
enlightenment.  The  scientific  view  asserts  not  that 
its  knowledge  is  absolute  or  complete,  but  that,  al- 
though relative  and  partial,  it  will  indubitably  con- 
tinue to  grow  harmoniously  along  the  general  lines 
already  laid  down. 

Another  change  wrought  by  the  inclusion  of  all 
phenomena  under  one  head  and  the  banishment  of 
the  supernatural  is  the  inestimable  advantage  that 
we  thereby  find  the  possibility  of  constructing  a  sin- 
gle general  view  of  the  universe  for  civilization.     At 


228  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

present  there  are  two  that  matter — the  orthodox  re- 
ligious and  the  scientific.  The  religious  starts  from 
the  top,  the  scientific  from  the  bottom;  but  the  scien- 
tific has  been  creeping  up,  and  now  that  it  has  begun 
to  attack  the  problem  of  mind  it  will  be  able  to  drown 
the  other  out.  Since  the  current  religious  formula- 
tion is  only  symbolic,  it  cannot  become  scientific; 
but  since  the  scientific  is  based  on  the  closest  possible 
analysis  of  reality,  it  can  become  religious  so  far  as 
it  investigates  the  realities  of  religious  experience. 

Once  it  has  done  this,  we  shall  be  able  to  construct 
a  Weltanschauung  such  as  never  before,  with  roots 
in  the  ordered  reactions  of  inorganic  matter,  trunk 
strong  with  the  steady  progress  of  evolving  life,  and 
branches  reaching  up  into  the  highest  realities  of  the 
spirit.  Union  is  strength;  and  it  is  one  of  the  prime 
duties  of  educated  men  and  women  to  see  that  the 
present  duality  and  antagonism  at  the  heart  of  what 
should  be  the  central  unity  of  civili'zation — of  its 
most  fundamental  idea,  its  conception  of  the  universe 
— should  be  terminated. 

The  new  outlook  will  also  interlock  with  the  youth- 
ful science  of  psychology  to  produce  great  results. 
Much  of  what  now  is  interpreted,  by  all  save  the  few 
experts,  in  supernatural  terms  of  the  old  theology 
will  become  intelligible  as  a  product  of  the  natural 
workings  of  that  amazing  thing,  the  human  mind. 
We  shall  not  have  sects  trying  to  exploit  the  normal 
dissatisfactions  and  disharmonies  of  adolescence  in 
order  to  secure  "conversions";  repressed  tendencies 


RATIONALISM   AND   THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  229 

will  not  be  thought  to  be  the  voice  of  a  personal 
Devil,  nor  neglected  ideals  the  voice  of  a  personal 
God.  Irrational  fear,  to-day  still  the  greatest  enemy 
of  mankind  and  most  potent  annihilator  of  happi- 
ness, will,  by  comprehension  of  its  curious  mechanism 
and  its  persistence,  often  transformed,  from  child- 
hood to  adult  life,  become  amenable  to  treatment 
and  be  made  more  and  more  to  disappear.  Proper 
analysis  of  mental  processes  such  as  repression,  sup- 
pression, and  sublimation  will  enable  us  to  make 
better  use  of  our  faculties,  and  deliberately  to  build 
up  treasures  of  spiritual  experience  now  attainable 
only  by  the  lucky  few  in  whom  temperament  and 
circumstances  accidentally  conspire. 

On  the  moral  side,  the  idea  that  a  Divine  com- 
mand has,  at  some  remote  period  in  the  past,  pro- 
vided a  fixed  code,  and  the  belief  in  the  immutable 
truth  of  certain  dogmas — these  will  happily  disap- 
pear. Morals,  like  all  else,  not  only  have  evolved, 
but  should  evolve.  We  shall  fmd,  for  instance,  that 
no  excuse  will  be  left  for  the  common  horrified  (and 
horrible)  views  of  sex,  as  of  something  inherently 
hateful,  of  all  its  pleasures  as  involving  sin;  for  it 
will  be  realized  that  too  much  of  the  present  attitude 
is  due  to  the  projection  of  our  own  conflicts  and  com- 
plexes, our  own  pruriences  and  pruderies,  into  what 
might  be  innocent  and  joyous.  But  this  merits  a 
fuller  discussion  than  we  can  here  allot. 

Again,  if  I  had  space  at  my  disposal,  I  would  write 
of  the  changes  in  the  position  and  constitution  of  re- 


230  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ligion  brought  about  by  changes  other  than  those  in 
religious  beliefs  themselves.  Most  important,  of 
course,  are  the  spread  of  education  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  spread  of  the  facilities  for  the  most  varied 
spiritual  enjoyment  on  the  other.  If  the  people  is 
educated  to  a  point  at  which  it  can  judge  for  itself, 
it  wants  no  special  priests  or  clerical  mediators;  its 
mediators  are  those  who  are  specially  fitted  to  un- 
ravel the  intellectual,  emotional,  and  moral  difficul- 
ties of  its  own  day  and  for  all  time — poets,  philoso- 
phers, and  men  of  science.  The  spread  of  facilities 
for  reading,  for  seeing  plays  and  works  of  art,  and 
hearing  good  music,  means  of  course  that,  whereas 
in  ruder  epochs  the  Church  provided  the  principal 
way  of  psychological  sublimation,  now  sublimation 
and  spiritual  refreshment  can  be  achieved  equally  or 
more  effectively  (and  every  whit  as  religiously)  with- 
out ever  frequenting  a  "place  of  worship"  or  belong- 
ing to  any  denomination.  This  tendency  towards 
fluidity  and  plasticity,  towards  many  possibilities  of 
sublimation  instead  of  one,  may  by  some  be  la- 
mented. But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  in  full  accord 
with  all  we  know  of  biological  progress..  Man  has 
attained  his  position  of  biological  pre-eminence  sim- 
ply and  solely  by  virtue  of  the  plasticity  of  his  mind, 
which  substitutes  infinitude  of  potentiality  for  the 
limited  range  of  actuality  given  by  the  instinctive 
reactions  of  lower  forms.  Humanity  will  always 
have  some  religion,  and  it  will  always  be  of  the  ut- 
most importance  to  man,  both  as  individual  and  as 


RATIONALISM    AND   THE    IDEA   OF   GOD  231 

species.  But  the  possibility  of  satisfying  his  relig- 
ious tendencies  intellectually,  emotionally,  and  mor- 
ally, without  rigid  creed,  limited  ritual,  and  iron- 
bound  code  of  morals,  will  mean  the  liberation  of  all 
that  is  best  in  religion  from  too  narrow  shackles,  and 
the  lifting  it  on  to  a  plane  where  it  may  be  not  only 
more  free,  but  more  rich. 

It  is  the  task  of  Rationalism  to  see  that  religion, 
this  fundamental  and  important  activity  of  man, 
shall  neither  be  allowed  to  continue  in  false  or  inade- 
quate forms,  nor  be  stifled  or  starved,  but  made  to 
help  humanity  in  a  vigorous  growth  that  is  based  on 
truth  and  in  constant  contact  with  realit>'. 

(For  bibliography,  see  the  end  of  the  next  essay.) 


VII 

RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE". 
OLD   WINE    IN    NEW    BOTTLES 


GOD  AND  MAN 

The  world  of  things  entered  your  infant  mind 

To  populate  that  crystal  cabinet. 

Within  its  walls  the  strangest  partners  met, 
And  things  turned  thoughts  did  propagate  their  kind. 

For,  once  within,  corporeal  fact  could  find 
A  spirit.     Fact  and  you  in  mutual  debt 
Built  there  your  little  microcosm— which  yet 

Had  hugest  tasks  to  its  small  self  assigned. 

Dead  men  can  live  there,  and  converse  with  stars: 
Equator  speaks  with  Pole,  and  Night  with  Day: 

Spirit  dissolves  the  world's  material  bars — 
A  million  isolations  burn  away. 

The  Universe  can  live  and  work  and  plan, 

At  last  made  God  within  the  mind  of  man. 


T 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE: 
OLD   WINE    IN    NEW    BOTTLES 

"In  la  sua  volontade  e  nostra  pace." 

— Dante. 

'Ye  are  the  Gods  if  ye  did  but  realize  it."— Carlyle. 

^'r  I  -\HE  next  great  task  of  Science  is  to  create  a 
religion  for  humanity."  So  says  Lord  Mor- 
ley  in  one  of  his  essays.  It  is  a  striking 
saying,  coming  as  it  does  from  one  in  whom  thought 
and  action  have  been  so  intertwined,  one  to  whom 
reason,  not  dogma,  is  the  basis  of  morality,  achieve- 
ment, not  emotion,  its  justification. 

Let  those  words  be  my  encouragement;  for  they 
challenge  at  the  outset,  and  to  my  mind  rightly,  two 
of  the  most  persistent  difficulties  that  confront  one 
who  tries  to  write  of  the  relations  between  Science 
and  Religion.  The  man  of  science  too  often  asks 
what  science  can  have  to  do  with  what  he  brands 
as  utterly  and  wholly  unscientific;  the  religiously- 
minded  man  demands  what  gain  can  follow  from 
contact  with  the  cold  and  inhuman  attitude  of  pure 
reason.  To  those  questions  I  hope  that  this  essay 
will  provide  a  partial  answer.  Meanwhile  I  shall 
begin  with  a  perhaps  less  ultimate  but  more  pressing 
question.  That  question  is  asked  by  many  men  and 
women  of  to-day,  who  on  the  one  hand  feel  as  it  were 

235 


236  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

instinctively  that  religion  of  some  sort  is  necessary 
for  life,  yet  on  the  other  are  unable  to  do  violence 
to  their  intellectual  selves  by  denying  the  facts  that 
reason  and  scientific  inquiry  reveal,  or  by  closing 
their  eyes  to  them. 

The  question,  in  briefest  form,  is  this:  "What 
room  does  science  leave  for  God?" 

To  the  savage,  all  is  spirit.  The  meanest  objects 
are  charged  v/ith  influence,  the  commonest  actions 
fraught  with  spiritual  possibilities,  the  operations  of 
nature  one  and  all  are  brought  about  by  spiritual 
powers — but  powers  multifarious  and  conflicting. 
"Nature  can  have  little  unity  for  savages.  It  is  a 
Walpurgis-nacht  procession,  a  checkered  play  of 
light  and  shadow,  a  medley  of  impish  and  elfish, 
friendly  and  inimical  powers."  ^ 

But  with  ordered  civilization  and  dispassionate  ob- 
servation a  network  of  material  cause  and  effect  in- 
vaded this  spiritual  domain.  The  mysterious  in- 
fluences, for  example,  believed  to  be  inherent  in 
springs  and  running  rivers  became  personified,  and, 
anthropomorphized  as  nymphs  or  gods,  were  removed 
into  a  seclusion  more  remote  from  practical  and 
everyday  life  than  their  unpersonified  predecessors. 
Later,  they  retreated  still  farther  from  actuality  into 
a  half-believed  mythology,  and  then  passed  away 
into  the  powerlessness  of  avowed  fairy-story  or  liter- 
ary symbolism,  while  the  rivers,  perceived  as  the  re- 
sultant of  natural  forces,  were  more  and  more  har- 

iW.  James,  '09.  p.  21. 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  237 

nessed  to  man's  use.  So  with  the  wind  and  ihc  rain, 
the  growth  of  crops,  the  storms  of  the  sea.  So,  in 
due  time,  with  the  thunder  and  the  lightning,  with 
earthquakes,  eruptions,  comets,  eclipses,  pestilences. 

This  process  of  liberating  matter  from  arbitrary 
and  mysterious  power,  of  perceiving  it  as  orderly 
and  endowed  with  regularity  of  natural  law,  of  bring- 
ing it  more  and  more  beneath  human  control,  was, 
on  the  other  hand,  accompanied  by  what  may  be 
called  a  combined  condensation  and  sublimation  of 
the  spiritual  forces  accepted  by  human  faith.  They 
are  built  up  from  spirit  to  spirits,  spirits  to  gods, 
gods  to  God.  But  now  it  seems  as  if  this  condensa- 
tion had  reached  its  limit,  and  the  sublimation  could 
only  go  farther  by  resolving  the  one  God  into  an 
empty  name  or  the  vaguest  unreality. 

We  look  back  and  see  the  Gods  of  early  man, 
and  are  complacently  prepared  to  believe  that  they 
were  based  in  error,  products  of  mental  immaturity, 
tc  be  relegated  to  limbo  without  regret.  But  what 
about  the  present?  Why  should  we  shrink  from  ap- 
plying the  same  process  to  the  God  of  to-day? 

Is  it  then  to  be  so  with  every  God?  Is  God  only 
a  personified  symbol  of  our  residuum  of  ignorance? 
Is  to  hold  the  idea  of  God  in  any  form  to  be,  as  Salo- 
mon Reinach  believes,  in  an  infantile  stage  of  human 
development,  and  must  we  with  him  define  religion 
as  "a  sum  of  beliefs  impeding  the  free  use  of  human 

faculty"? 

I  think  not;  and  I  shall  endeavour  to  justify  my 


238  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

belief  to  you,  and  to  show  that,  albeit  much  altera- 
tion and  a  thorough  revision  of  ideas  is  needed,  the 
term  God  has  an  important  scientific  connotation, 
and  further  that  the  present  stagnation  of  religion 
can  be  remedied  if,  as  has  happened  again  and  again 
in  biological  evolution,  the  old  forms  become  extinct 
or  subordinate,  and  a  new  dominant  type  is  devel- 
oped along  quite  fresh  lines. 

In  any  case  the  man  of  science  must  obviously,  if 
he  face  the  problem  at  all,  take  up  a  scientific  atti- 
tude of  mind  towards  it.  He  cannot  say  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  religion;  or  try  to  whittle  it  away 
by  explaining  that  it  is  something  else — a  compli- 
cated fear,  or  a  sublimated  sex-instinct,  or  a  combina- 
tion of  credulity  and  duplicity.  A  thing,  if  it  is  a 
thing  at  all,  is  never  merely  something  else.  Nor 
can  he  submit  to  the  pretensions  of  those  who  assert 
that  it  is  too  sacred  to  be  touched,  or  that  its  cer- 
tainties are  greater  than  those  of  science.  No — he 
must  treat  it  for  what  it  is — a  fact,  and  a  very  im- 
portant fact  at  that,  in  human  history:  and  he  must 
see  whether  the  application  of  scientific  method  to 
its  study — in  other  words,  its  illumination  by  the 
faculty  of  pure  intellect — will  help  not  only  our 
comprehension  of  religion  in  the  past,  but  its  actual 
development  in  the  future. 

He  can  study  it  in  various  ways.  He  can  use  the 
method  of  observation  and  comparison,  collecting 
and  collating  facts  until  he  is  able  to  give  a  con- 
nected account  of  the  manifestations  of  religion  and 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  239 

of  their  past  history;  he  can  study  il  pliysiolugically. 
so  to  speak,  to  see  what  part  it  plays  in  the  body 
politic,  and  how  that  part  may  alter  with  circum- 
stances; or  he  may  seek  to  investigate  its  essence,  to 
discover  not  only  how  it  appears  and  what  it  does, 
but  what  it  is. 

Further,  he  must  have  some  general  principles  to 
lean  on  in  his  search,  principles  both  positive  and 
negative.  He  must  be  content  to  leave  certain  pos- 
sibilities out  of  account  because  as  yet  he  cannot  see 
how  they  can  be  connected  with  his  organized  scheme 
of  things;  in  other  words,  he  has  to  be  content  to 
build  slowly  and  imperfectly  in  order  that  he  may  be 
sure  of  building  soundly.  This  is  the  principle  which 
we  may  call  positive  agnosticism. 

This  very  fact  has  been  in  the  past  one  of  the  great 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  successful  treatment  of  re- 
ligion by  science.  One  of  the  attributes  of  man  is 
his  desire  for  a  complete  explanation,  or  at  least  a 
complete  view,  of  his  universe,  and  this  has  been  at 
the  bottom  of  much  doctrine  and  man>'  creeds.  But 
before  Kepler  and  Newton,  no  truly  scientific  account 
could  be  given  of  celestial  phenomena;  before  Dar- 
win, none  of  Natural  History;  before  the  recent  re- 
vival in  psychology,  none  of  the  mind  and  its  work- 
ings. In  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
for  instance,  science  could  give  an  adequate  account 
of  most  inorganic  phenomena,  and,  in  broad  outline, 
of  evolutionary  geology  and  biology;  but  mind  was 
still  refractory.     Accordingly,  the  philosophy  of  sci- 


240  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ence  was  mainly  materialist.  But  the  common  man 
felt  that  mind  was  not  the  empty  epiphenomenon 
that  orthodox  science  would  have  it;  and  he  desired 
a  scheme  of  things  in  which  mind  should  be  more 
adequately  explained  than  it  could  be  by  science  at 
its  then  stage  of  development.     Hinc  illae  lacrimae. 

To-day  it  is  at  least  possible  to  link  up,  not  only 
physics  and  chemistry  and  geology  and  evolutionary 
biology,  but  also  anthropology  and  psychology,  into 
a  whole  which,  though  far  from  complete,  is  at  least 
organized  and  coherent  with  itself.  If  the  seven- 
teenth century  cleared  the  ground  for  that  dwelling- 
place  of  human  mind  which  we  call  the  scientific 
view  of  things,  if  the  eighteenth  century  laid  the 
foundations  and  the  nineteenth  built  the  walls,  the 
twentieth  is  already  fitting  up  some  of  the  rooms  for 
actual  habitation. 

There  are  certain  other  domains  of  reality  which 
have  not  yet  been  properly  investigated  by  science. 
Telepathy,  for  instance,  and  the  whole  mass  of  phe- 
nomena included  broadly  under  the  term  spirit- 
ualism, are  in  about  the  some  position  with  regard  to 
organized  scientific  thought  to-day  as  was  astronomy 
before  astrology's  collapse,  as  was  the  study  of  elec- 
tricity in  the  eighteenth  century,  or  that  of  hypno- 
tism in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth.  What  is  more, 
the  average  man  demands  that  phenomena  of  this 
order  shall  be  included  in  his  scheme  of  things.  Sci- 
ence cannot  yet  do  this  for  him;  and  accordingly 
the  dwelling-place  that  we  are  building  must  still 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  241 

be  incomplete;  it  is  for  those  who  come  after  to  build 
the  upper  stories. 

This  cannot  be  helped.  What  we  build,  we  must 
build  firmly;  on  what  is  yet  to  be  built,  science  can- 
not pronounce,  except  to  say  that  she  knows  that  it 
will  be  congruous  with  what  has  gone  before. 

What  general  principles,  then,  do  we  assume?  \\\- 
assume  that  the  universe  is  composed  throughout  of 
the  same  matter,  whose  essential  unity,  in  spite  of 
the  diversity  of  its  so-called  elements,  the  recent  re- 
searches of  physicists  are  revealing  to  us;  we  assume 
that  matter  behaves  in  the  same  way  wherever  it  is 
found,  showing  the  same  mode  of  sequence  of  change, 
of  cause  and  effect.  We  assume,  on  fairly  good  al- 
though indirect  evidence,  that  there  has  been  an  evo- 
lution of  the  forms  assumed  by  matter:  that,  in  this 
solar  system  of  ours,  for  instance,  matter  was  once 
all  in  electronic  form,  that  it  then  attained  to  the 
atomic  and  the  molecular;  that  later,  colloidal  or- 
ganic matter  of  a  special  type  made  its  appearance, 
and  later  still,  living  matter  arose.  That  the  forms 
of  life,  simple  at  first,  attained  progressively  to 
greater  complexity;  that  mind,  negligible  in  the  lower 
forms,  became  of  greater  and  greater  importance, 
until  it  reached  its  present  level  in  man.- 

Unity,  uniformity,  and  development  are  the  three 
great  principles  that  emerge.  We  know  of  no  in- 
stance where  the  properties  of  matter  change,  though 
many  where  a  new  state  of  matter  develops.     The 

2  See  Danysz,  '21. 


242  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

full  properties  of  a  molecular  compound  such  as 
water,  for  instance,  cannot  be  deduced  at  present 
from  what  we  know  about  the  properties  of  its  con- 
stituent atoms  of  hydrogen  and  oxygen.  The  prop- 
erties of  the  human  mind  cannot  be  deduced  from 
our  present  knowledge  of  the  minds  of  animals. 
New  combinations  and  properties  thus  arise  in  time. 
Bergson  miscalls  such  evolution  "creative."  We  had 
better,  with  Lloyd  Morgan,  call  it  "emergent." 

With  mind,  we  fmd  a  gradual  evolution  from  a 
state  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  mental 
response  from  physiological  reaction,  up  to  the  in- 
tensity and  complexity  of  our  own  emotions  and  in- 
tellect. Since  all  material  developments  in  evolu- 
tion can  be  traced  back  step  by  step  and  shown  to  be 
specializations  of  one  or  more  of  the  primitive  prop- 
erties of  living  matter,  it  is  not  only  an  economy  of 
hypothesis,  but  also,  in  the  absence  of  any  evidence 
to  the  contrary,  the  proper  conclusion,  that  mental 
properties  also  are  to  be  traced  back  to  the  simplest 
and  most  original  forms  of  life.  What  exact  signifi- 
cance is  to  be  attached  to  the  term  "mental  proper- 
ties" in  such  organisms,  it  is  hard  to  say;  we  mean, 
however,  that  something  of  the  same  general  nature 
as  mind  in  ourselves  is  inherent  in  all  life,  something 
standing  in  the  same  relation  to  living  matter  in 
general  as  do  our  minds  to  the  particular  living  mat- 
ter of  our  brains. 

But  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  living 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  243 

matter,  in  due  process  of  time,  originated  from  non- 
living; and  if  that  be  so,  we  must  pu^h  our  conclu- 
sion farther,  and  believe  that  not  onl\'  living  matter, 
but  all  matter,  is  associated  with  something  of  the 
same  general  description  as  mind  in  higher  animals. 
We  come,  that  is,  to  a  monistic  conclusion,  in  that  we 
believe  that  there  is  only  one  fundamental  substance, 
and  that  this  possesses  not  only  material  properties, 
but  also  properties  for  which  the  word  tjiental  is  the 
nearest  approach.  We  want  a  new  word  to  denote 
this  X,  this  world-stuff;  matter  will  not  do,  for  that 
is  a  word  which  the  physicists  and  chemists  have 
moulded  to  suit  themselves,  and  since  they  have  not 
yet  learned  to  detect  or  measure  mental  phenomena, 
they  restrict  the  word  "material"  to  mean  "non- 
mental,"  and  "matter"  to  mean  that  which  has  such 
"material"  properties. 

You  will  remember  William  of  Occam's  razor; 
"Entia  non  multiplicanda  praeter  necessitatem"; 
when  we  are  monists  in  the  sense  I  have  just  out- 
lined, we  are  using  that  weapon  to  shave  awa>'  a 
very  unrestrained  growth  of  hair  which  has  long 
obscured  the  features  of  reality. 

Holding  to  these  principles,  we  must,  until  evi- 
dence to  the  contrary  is  produced,  reject  any  explana- 
tion which  proceeds  by  cataclysms,  or  by  miracles:  a 
miracle  becomes  (when  not  an  illusion)  simply  an 
event  which  is  on  the  one  hand  uncommon,  and  for 
which,  on  the  other,  there  has  been  found  no  ex- 


244  ESSAYS   OF    A   BIOLOGIST 

planation.  Revelation  too  goes  by  the  board — save 
a  revelation  which  is  simply  a  name  for  the  progres- 
sive increase  of  knowlege  and  insight. 

Last,  but  not  least,  we  do  not  pretend  to  know  the 
Absolute.  We  know  phenomena,  and  our  systems, 
in  so  far  as  scientific,  are  interpretations  of  phenom- 
ena. 

Religion  has  been  defined  in  a  hundred  different 
ways.  It  has  been  defined  intellectually — as  a  creed; 
as  myth;  as  a  view  of  the  universe;  it  has  been  de- 
fined emotionally  as  consisting  in  awe;  in  fear;  in 
love;  in  mystical  exaltation  or  communion.  It  has 
been  defined  from  the  standpoint  of  action — as  wor- 
ship; as  ritual;  as  sacrifice;  as  morality.  Matthew 
Arnold  called  it  'morality  tinged  with  emotion"; 
Salomon  Reinach  "a  sum  of  scruples  impeding  the 
free  use  of  human  faculties."  Jevons  makes  the  ex- 
periencing of  God  the  central  feature;  and  so  on  and 
so  forth.  Is  it  possible  to  find  any  common  measure 
for  all  these  statements?  Would  it  not  be  better  to 
unite  with  those  who  cut  the  Gordian  knot  by  writ- 
ing down  all  religion  simply  as  illusion?  No.  For 
their  point  of  view  is  meaningless.  Even  illusions 
are,  in  themselves,  facts  to  be  investigated;  and  even 
illusions  have  a  basis. 

.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  believe  that  it  is  an 
illusion;  the  knot  may  be  untied.  Ritual,  Creed, 
Morality,  Mystical  Experience — all  these  are  mani- 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  245 

festations  of  religion,  but  not  religion  itself.  Re- 
ligion itself  is  the  reaction  between  man  as  a  person- 
ality on  the  one  side,  and,  on  the  other,  all  of  the  uni- 
verse with  which  he  comes  in  contact.  It  is  not  only 
ritual,  for  you  may  have  obviously  non-religious  rit- 
ual, as  in  a  court  ceremonial  or  a  legal  function:  it 
is  not  merely  morality,  for  men  may  practise  moral- 
ity, the  most  austere  or  the  most  terre  a  terre,  unin- 
spired by  anything  that  could  remotely  be  called  re- 
ligious: it  is  not  belief,  for  we  may  have  beliefs  of 
all  kinds,  even  to  the  most  complex  scientific  beliefs 
concerning  the  universe,  which  have  yet  no  connec- 
tion with  religion:  it  is  neither  communion  in  itself, 
nor  ecstasy  in  itself,  as  many  lovers  and  poets  could 
tell  you. 

But  because  it  is  a  reaction  of  the  whole  person- 
ality, it  must  involve  intellectual  and  practical  and 
emotional  processes:  and  because  man  has  the  powers 
of  abstraction  and  association,  or  rather  because  his 
mind  in  most  cases  cannot  help  making  associations 
and  abstractions,  it  follows  that  it  will  inevitably 
concern  itself,  consciously  or  subconsciously,  with  all 
the  phenomena  that  it  encounters,  will  try  to  bring 
them  all  into  its  scheme,  and  will  try  to  unify  them 
and  frame  concepts  to  deal  with  them  as  a  whole. 

Some  men  will  be  more  concerned  on  the  emo- 
tional, others  on  the  intellectual,  others  again  on 
the  moral  side:  but  it  is  impossible  to  separate  any 
one  of  the  three  aspects  entirely  from  the  others. 


246  ESSAYS   OF    A   BIOLOGIST 

We  will  begin  with  and  treat  mainly  of  the  in- 
tellectual aspect  of  the  problem,  the  credal  side.  For 
one  thing,  science  has  more  direct  concern  with  it 
than  with  the  others;  for  another,  more  continuous 
and  startling  alterations  have  had  to  be  made  in  it; 
and  finally,  the  actual  problem  is  there  felt  most 
acutely  at  the  present  moment. 

What,  then,  is  the  problem?  In  the  terms  of  our 
definition  of  religion,  it  is  in  its  most  general  terms 
as  follows:  Man  has  to  live  his  life  in  a  world  in 
which  he  is  confronted  with  forces  and  powers  other 
than  his  own.  He  is  a  mere  animalcule  in  compari- 
son with  the  totality  of  these  forces,  his  life  a  second 
in  comparison  with  their  centuries.  By  his  mental 
constitution,  he  of  necessity  attempts  to  formulate 
some  intelligible  account  of  the  constitution  of  the 
world  and  its  relation  to  himself — or  should  we  rather 
say  in  so  far  as  it  is  in  relation  to  himself? — and  so 
we  have  a  myth,  a  doctrine,  or  a  creed. 

At  the  present  moment,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
there  appears  to  be  an  irreconcilable  conflict  between 
orthodox  Christianity  and  orthodox  Natural  Science. 
The  one  asserts  the  existence  of  an  omnipotent,  om- 
niscient, personal  God — creator,  ruler,  and  refuge. 
The  other,  by  reducing  ever  more  and  more  of  nat- 
ural phenomena  to  v/hat  we  please  to  call  natural 
laws — in  other  words,  to  orderly  processes  proceed- 
ing inevitably  from  the  known  constitution  and  prop- 
erties of  matter — has  robbed  such  a  God  of  ever  more 
and  more  of  his  realm  and  possible  power;  until 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  247 

finally,  with  the  rise  of  evolutionary  biology  and 
psychology,  there  seems  to  be  no  place  any  more  for 
a  God  in  the  universe. 

Stated  thus,  the  opposition  is  complete.  But  let  us 
return  on  our  footsteps,  and  trace  for  one  thing  some 
of  the  history  of  religious  beliefs,  for  another  re- 
investigate, from  a  slightly  unusual  standpoint,  the 
actual  knowledge  of  the  Universe  which  science  has 
given  us. 

Man  has  developed:  in  early  stages,  his  physical 
and  mental  capacities  developed;  in  later  stages  de- 
velopment has  been  mainly  restricted  to  his  tradi- 
tions, ideas,  and  achievements.  As  part  of  his  devel- 
opment, his  religious  ideas  have  altered  too. 

At  the  beginning,  he  appears  to  have  no  ideas  of 
a  God  of  Gods  at  all — merely  of  influences  and  pow- 
ers, obviously  (he  would  say)  inherent  in  the  forces 
of  Nature,  magically  inherent  in  certain  objects 
and  actions — fetishes  and  incantations,  lie  seems 
scarcely  to  have  been  conscious  of  himself  as  an  indi- 
vidual, or  of  the  full  distinction  between  self  and  the 
external  world. 

Later,  perhaps  as  the  idea  of  his  own  personality 
grew,  he  began  to  ascribe  a  more  personal  existence 
to  the  forces  with  which  he  came  into  contact,  and 
so  to  turn  them  more  and  more  into  beings  that  can 
properly  be  called  Gods:  polydaemonism  arose  and 
in  its  turn  gave  place  to  pol\'theism. 

But  while  rigid  custom  was  at  first  the  only  moral- 
ity, and  each  external  power  and  each  human  activ- 


248  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ity  was  regarded  separately,  later  the  rise  of  civiliza- 
tion led  to  a  modification  of  custom,  to  a  reference  of 
action  and  belief  to  the  standards  of  pure  reason,  and 
to  an  attempt  at  unification.  Once  this  occurred,  and 
equally  so  whether  the  attempt  at  unification  had  an 
intellectual  or  a  moral  basis,  polytheism  was  doomed. 
Its  downfall  has  been  often  described;  the  reasons 
for  it  are  suggestively  put  by  Jevons  in  his  little  book, 
"The  Idea  of  God.''  It  passes  through  a  stage  where 
one  among  the  gods  is  pre-eminent:  but  finally  even 
that  does  not  suffice,  and  in  its  place  arises  a  mono- 
theistic creed. 

Monotheism  may  start  as  a  purely  local  or  tribal 
affair — my  one  God  against  yours.  It  may  not  only 
start,  but  long  continue  so.  Readers  of  Mr.  Bang's 
collection  of  startling  German  war-sayings  will  re- 
member the  superbly  national  prayer  of  the  Prussian 
pastor  who  addressed  his  God  (I  quote  from  mem- 
ory) as  "Du,  der  hoch  iiber  Cherubinen,  Seraphinen, 
und  Zeppelinen  ewig  tronst."  (J.  P.  Bang,  Hur- 
rah and  Hallelujah.  London,  1916.)  But  this  idea, 
too,  is  self-contradictory,  and  merges  into  that  of  one 
God  for  all  men.  The  primitive  anthropomorphism 
which  had  invested  the  first  vague  and  mysterious 
spirits  with  human  parts  and  passions,  human  speech 
and  thought,  also  fell  into  gradual  desuetude.  It 
was  kept  up  as  a  symbol,  or  because  of  the  difficulty 
of  describing  a  God  except  in  terms  human  indi- 
viduality, but  its  literal  truth  was  deliberately  de- 
nied.   God  became  different  from  and  more  than 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  249 

man — omnipotent,  omniscient,  witii  no  parts,  with  no 
limitations:  but  he  retained  personality — in  other 
words,  a  mental  or  spiritual  organization  of  the  same 
general  kind  as  man's,  however  superior  in  degree. 
With  time,  the  divine  personality  became  com- 
pounded more  and  more  of  man's  ideals  instead  of 
his  everyday  thoughts  and  attributes.  And  thus 
and  that  God  remains.  He  has  created  everything; 
he  is  in  some  sense  immanent  in  the  world,  in  some 
sense  apart  from  it  as  its  ruler — you  take  your  choice 
according  to  your  philosophic  preferences.  Beyond 
that,  organized  religious  thought  has  not  gone;  and 
now  it  finds  itself  fronting  science  in  an  impasse. 

That,  very  briefly  and  roughly,  is  how  man's  idea 
of  God  has  developed.  But  how  have  man's  knowl- 
edge and  ideas  of  the  natural  universe  developed? 
What  has  Science  to  say  to  the  impasse? 

Man  has  to  deal  with  three  great  categories  of 
phenomena — the  inorganic,  the  organic,  and  the 
psychic.  In  the  inorganic,  chemistry  first  and  then 
physics  have  given  us  a  picture  whose  broad  outlines 
are  now  familiar.  There  is  but  one  type  and  store 
of  energy  in  Nature,  whether  it  drives  a  train,  ani- 
mates a  man,  radiates  in  heat  or  light,  inheres  in  a 
falling  stone.  There  is  but  one  substance.  All  bod- 
ies of  trees,  of  men,  rivers  and  rocks,  the  clouds  in  the 
air  and  the  air  itself,  precious  stones  and  common 
clay — all  can  be  resolved  into  a  limited  number  of 
elements.  And  these  elements  in  their  turn  can  be 
resolved  into  combinations,  dilTering,  it  appears,  only 


250  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

quantitatively  from  each  other,  of  electrical  charges; 
so  that  at  the  last  all  matter  is  one,  and  becomes  per- 
haps indistinguishable,  or  at  least  inseparable,  from 
energy.  There  is  no  personal  operator  for  particular 
happenings;  the  lightning  and  the  volcano  are  the 
inevitable  outcome  of  the  material  constitution  of 
things,  equally  with  the  form  and  colour  of  a  pebble 
and  with  the  fact  that  it  will  drop  to  the  ground  if  it 
is  let  fall.     All  is  impersonal  order  and  unity. 

There  is,  however,  one  other  great  fact  about  the 
system  of  inorganic  matter.  The  energy  contained 
in  it  tends  to  be  degraded,  as  the  physicists  say — in 
other  words  to  become  less  readily  available.  There 
is  available  energy  in  moving  matter.  There  is  po- 
tential energy  in  all  matter,  dependent  upon  whether 
it  can  be  set  in  motion.  But  if  the  sea  were  to  cover 
the  whole  surface  of  the  globe,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  extract  energy  from  running  water  as  we  do  now, 
because  no  water  would  be  running.  So  too  heat  is 
energy;  but  it  is  only  available  when  it  can  flow, 
when  there  are  hotter  and  colder  bodies.  The  law 
under  which  transformations  of  energy  operate  has 
now  been  investigated,  and  it  has  been  established 
that  in  every  energy-transaction  a  certain  modicum 
goes  to  waste  as  unavailable  heat,  so  that,  unless  some 
at  present  unforeseen  change  occurs,  the  last  state  of 
the  universe,  considered  as  a  purely  physico-chemical 
mechanism,  will  be  one  of  death,  of  inactivity,  with 
all  matter  at  a  uniform  low  temperature  and  the 
whole  stock  of  energy  locked  up  and  unavailable 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  251 

in  this  sea  of  tranquillity.  True  for  one  thing  that 
an  almost  inconceivable  number  of  millions  of  years 
must  elapse  before  this  "death  of  matter"  is  realized; 
and  for  another  that  we  are  unable  to  understand 
how  such  a  progressive  degradation  could  have  been 
in  operation  from  all  eternity.  We  must  not  expect 
complete  knowledge  within  a  few  years  or  a  few  cen- 
turies; but  even  if  the  beginning  is  veiled — for  there 
is  no  more  evidence  for  a  "creation"  than  for  (say) 
a  rhythmic  reversal  of  the  direction  of  energy-avail- 
ability— and  if  it  is  always  possible  that  some  un- 
foreseen change  in  the  process  should  occur  before 
the  whole  runs  down,  yet  it  is  a  fact  (and  we  are  re- 
solved to  be  agnostic  save  about  facts)  that,  here 
and  now,  a  direction  is  to  be  observed  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  inorganic  matter,  by  which  natural  operations 
are  tending  to  become  less  active,  and  the  amount  of 
available  energy  is  diminishing.  If  it  continues  in- 
definitely, first  life,  and  later  on  all  activity  and 
change  whatsoever  will  cease.  There  is  a  tendency 
towards  death  and  towards  unchanging  inactivity. 

The  next  great  category  is  that  of  the  organic,  of 
living  matter.  We  have  to  consider  its  origin  and 
later  history.  So  far  as  constitution  goes,  living 
matter  is  merely  a  special  and  highly  complicated 
form  of  ordinary  matter;  and  there  can  be  no  reason- 
able doubt  that  it  has  originated  naturally  from  non- 
living matter. 

While  the  main  direction  of  the  inorganic  has  been 
towards  degradation  of  energy,  it  has  shown  another 


252  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

subsidiary  direction  towards  the  production  of  more 
and  more  complex  forms  of  matter.  If  our  general 
ideas  are  correct,  there  must  have  been  a  time  when 
matter  in  our  ordinary  sense  of  the  word  did  not 
exist — there  can  have  been  no  atoms,  only  free  elec- 
trons. From  this  state,  there  evolved  one  in  which 
the  various  electron-systems  that  we  call  atoms  first 
appeared;  later  still,  atoms  could  join  with  atoms  to 
produce  molecules.  Leaping  over  vast  periods,  we 
would  come  to  the  time  when  radiation  had  brought 
the  temperature  of  the  earth  surface  below  100  de- 
grees centigrade;  water  then  could  form  from  steam 
and  solution  occur.  Through  solution,  all  soluble 
elements,  which  would  othen\ise  remain  locked  in  the 
inactivity  of  the  solid  state,  are  enabled  to  enter  upon 
a  new  phase  of  mobility,  of  chemical  life,  as  we  may 
say.  Only  in  water  could  colloid  carbon  compounds 
first  be  built  up,  and  only  from  such  substances  could 
life  originate. 

Living  substance,  or  at  least  much  of  it,  must  be 
formed  of  molecules  containing  thousands  of  atoms, 
each  atom  in  its  turn  a  system  of  circling  electrons. 
Here  already  is  a  vast  increase  of  complexity:  it  re- 
mains to  be  seen  whether  the  same  tendency  is  per- 
petuated later. 

The  evolutionary  concept  is  to  biology  what  the 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  has  been  in 
the  physico-chemical  sciences — an  indispensable  pre- 
liminary to  proper  methods  of  attack.  But  while 
great  stress  has  been  laid  on  the  various  methods  by 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  253 

which  evolution  may  be  supposed  to  have  taken 
place — natural  selection,  Lamarckism,  orthogenesis 
and  the  rest — biology  has  concerned  herself  com- 
paratively little  with  the  forvi  of  the  process  in  it- 
self. But  it  is  here  that  evolution  becomes  of  value 
to  us  in  our  present  search;  for  once  more  we  become 
aware  of  a  direction.  Partly  from  the  direct  evi- 
dence of  palaeontology,  partly  from  indirect  evi- 
dence, but  along  many  converging  lines,  we  can  form 
an  idea  of  this  direction  which  in  broad  outlines  is 
unassailable. 

During  life's  existence  on  earth — a  period  to  be 
reckoned  in  hundreds  and  probably  in  thousands  of 
millions  of  years — there  has  been  an  increase  in  va- 
rious of  its  attributes.  But  just  as  in  the  inorganic 
world  electrons  and  atoms  still  exist  as  such  side  by 
side  with  molecules,  so  also  the  earlier  types  of  liv- 
ing matter  continue  to  exist  side  by  side  with  the 
later.  The  increase  is  not  therefore  seen  uniformly 
in  all  forms  at  once,  but  is  most  easily  observed  by 
studying  the  maximum  level  attained.  Size,  for  in- 
stance, is  one  of  these  attributes;  and  whereas  to-day 
all  variations  are  to  be  found  between  ultra-micro- 
scopic disease-germs  and  vast  organisms  like  whales 
and  elephants,  there  has  been  a  gradual  steadying 
increase  (tending  to  a  limit)  in  the  size  of  the  largest 
organisms  existing  at  any  one  period. 

If  we  confine  ourselves  for  the  moment  to  the  ma- 
terial side,  we  find  that  the  directional  change  in  or- 
ganic evolution  can  be  reduced  to  this — to  an  in- 


254  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

crease  of  the  control  exercised  by  living  matter  over 
the  environment,  and  of  its  independence  of  the  en- 
vironment— two  reciprocal  aspects  of  a  single  proc- 
ess. When  we  look  more  closely  into  the  means  by 
which  this  has  been  achieved,  we  shall  see  an  increase 
of  the  maximum  not  only  in  size,  but  in  complexity, 
in  length  of  life,  in  efficiency  of  particular  organs, 
in  co-ordination  of  parts  and  general  harmony,  in 
improvement  of  sense-organs,  and,  continuing  even 
after  other  tendencies  have  reached  their  limits,  in 
brain-size  and  consequently  in  complexity  of  mode 
of  reaction  and  behaviour. 

If  we  turn  to  the  psychological  side,  we  fmd  that 
there  has  been  an  increase  in  the  intensity  of  mental 
process.  This  is  apparent  in  all  aspects  of  mind, 
on  that  of  emotion  equally  with  that  of  knowledge, 
of  volition  equally  with  that  of  emotion.  To  be  an 
amoeba  or  a  worm  is  to  live  a  life  almost  without 
windows.  Perfection  of  sense-organs  makes  it  pos- 
sible for  life  to  be  aware  of  the  different  types  of 
outer  events,  whilst  memory  and,  later,  associative 
memory  give  the  possibility  of  understanding  their 
history.  In  higher  forms  volition  can  be  maintained 
for  longer  and  longer  intervals,  can  attain  greater  in- 
tensity, and  can  fix  itself  upon  ever  more  and  more 
distant  objects.  With  depth  of  feeling  comes  also 
differentiation,  so  that  finally  we  find  in  ourselves  the 
possibility  of  organizing  various  blends  of  the  sim- 
ple emotions  into  the  compound  emotional  forms 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  255 

such  as  reverence  and  admiration,  called  sentiments 
by  McDougall. 

Biologically  speaking,  therefore,  the  direction  ob- 
servable in  mental  evolution  is  again  towards  in- 
creased control  and  increased  independence;  by  men- 
tal and  cerebral  improvement  there  is  introduced  a 
greater  accuracy  and  a  greater  range  of  control,  as 
well  as  better  adjustment  between  organisms  and 
environment,  than  would  be  otherwise  possible  to 
the  same  bodily  organs. 

The  direction  of  life  may  therefore  be  roughly 
summed  up  in  the  two  words  "more  life" — more  both 
in  quantity  (have  not  both  land  and  air  been  colo- 
nized during  evolution?)  and  also  in  quality.  More 
matter  has  been  stolen  from  the  lifeless  and  embodied 
in  the  living;  and  the  living  begins  to  be  less  helpless 
in  face  of  the  lifeless. 

The  direction  of  living  matter  is  thus  in  many  ways 
opposed  to  the  direction  to  be  seen  in  inorganic  mat- 
ter; yet  not  only  has  the  organic  arisen  from  the  in- 
organic, but  its  direction  continues  one  direction  al- 
ready traceable  before  the  appearance  of  life.^ 

Finally,  we  come  to  the  psychological  aspect  of 
the  universe.  We  have  already  touched  on  it  in 
connection  with  biology,  and  found  that  in  many 
ways  at  least  the  development  of  mind  follows  the 
same  lines  as  that  of  living  matter,  and  helps  for- 
ward the  general  trend  of  life. 

3  See  Danysz,  '21. 


256  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

But  finally  a  kink  occurs,  a  critical  point  similar 
to  that  seen  at  the  origin  of  living  from  non-living 
matter.  There  the  attributes  of  living  matter  which 
mark  it  off  from  inorganic  matter  become  dominant 
— its  capacity  for  self-reproduction,  its  tendency  to 
organization.  The  colloid  carbon  compound  had 
been  the  highest  known  independent  unit;  from  now 
on  this  place  was  taken  by  the  organism. 

In  exactly  the  same  way,  in  the  final  stages  of  evo- 
lution (as  witnessed  abundantly  by  fossil  mammals) 
complexity  of  purely  bodily  organization  had  reached 
a  limit,  and  survival,  as  is  evidenced  by  increasing 
size  of  brain,  came  to  be  determined  more  and  more 
by  mental  qualities.  Finally  the  curve  of  mental 
development  caught  up  with  that  of  body,  and  inter- 
sected it:  mind  became  the  dominant  factor  in  the 
new  type  of  organism,  and  in  the  subsequent  his- 
tory of  the  evolutionary  process.  The  organism 
ceased  to  be  the  highest  unit,  and  gave  place  to  the 
person,  or  self-conscious  individual  with  organized 
mind. 

This  new  critical  point  was  reached  when  man 
arose;  many  authors  recognize  it  for  what  it  is,  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era,  by  christening  the  subse- 
quent geological  period  the  Psychozoic.  That  pe- 
riod, geologically  speaking,  has  not  yet  run  but  a  tiny 
span;  and  we  are  no  more  entitled  to  think  that 
we  have  reached  or  even  imagined  the  possibilities  of 
its  future  evolution  than  we  should  have  been  en- 
titled to  regard  the  possibilities  of  purely  biological 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  257 

evolution  as  having  been  exhausted  after  the  far 
longer  period  needed  to  give  rise  to  a  coral  polyp  or 
a  jelly-fish  as  highest  existing  types  of  organism. 
Even  man  as  a  biological  species  is  in  his  infancy,  not 
to  speak  of  other  psychozoic  types  that  may  be  wait- 
ing in  the  womb  of  time. 

But  what  are  the  characteristics  of  this  new  phase? 
In  the  first  place,  mind  has  become  self-conscious; 
thus  the  evolutionary  methods  of  psychozoic  organ- 
isms may  become  conscious,  and  they  come  to  direct 
their  own  evolution  instead  of  having  their  destinies 
shaped  by  the  blind  forces  of  natural  selection. 

In  most  respects  the  same  direction  as  before  is 
pursued,  but  new  methods  are  introduced.  The  rate 
of  change,  of  movement  in  that  direction,  is  acceler- 
ated; and  the  possibility  is  given  of  eliminating  a 
vast  deal  of  waste.  A  watchmaker  sends  out  very 
few  defective  watches:  why?  because  he  makes  his 
watches  on  a  preconceived  plan.  Even  when  an 
improvement  in  watch  construction  is  introduced,  he 
can  draw  up  his  plan  beforehand,  and  at  the  worst, 
waste  only  time  and  paper,  instead  of  metal  and  far 
more  time.  Ideas  do  not  need  to  be  embodied  be- 
fore selection  can  act  upon  them;  thus  an  increasing 
amount  of  evolutionary  change  will  take  place 
through  the  natural  selection  of  ideas  than  through 
the  older  and  far  more  wasteful  process,  natural  se- 
lection of  individuals  and  species. 

Finally,  values  appear  upon  the  scene.  If  we  could 
ask  a  wild  animal  such  as  a  fox  what  gave  value  to 


258  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

its  life,  and  it  could  answer  us,  it  would  doubtless 
say  food,  sleep,  comfort,  hunting,  sexual  pleasure, 
and  family  companionship.  But  it  cannot  answer; 
nor  can  it  know  the  value  of  what  it  pursues,  but 
only  appreciate  the  result.  Strictly  speaking,  values 
do  not  exist  for  it.  However,  even  if  we  allow  our- 
selves to  speak  of  values  in  the  life  of  pre-human 
organisms,  we  see  immediately  that  wholly  new  val- 
ues are  introduced  after  the  critical  point. 

Putting  it  summarily,  we  can  say  that,  with  the 
rise  of  mind  to  dominance,  various  activities  of  mind 
come  to  be  pursued  for  their  own  sake,  to  have  value 
in  themselves.  Our  life  is  worth  living  not  only 
for  the  sake  of  eating  and  drinking,  sleeping,  athlet- 
ics, and  sexual  pleasure.  There  is  a  value  attached 
to  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  apart  from  the  pos- 
sible access  of  control  that  it  may  bring.  But  this  is 
new,  a  property  of  man  alone;  not  even  Athena's 
owl  will  exert  itself  through  laborious  years  to  under- 
stand celestial  mechanics  or  physiology.  The  high- 
est anthropoids  do  not  attempt  to  create  works  of  art, 
which  for  man  come  to  have  value  in  themselves. 
Natural  beauty  comes  to  have  its  value  too;  a  cow 
(so  far  as  known!)  does  not  interrupt  the  business 
of  its  life  to  admire  the  sunset,  whereas  men  may 
and  do.  Behaviour  also  is  implicated;  with  the 
entry  upon  the  scene  of  that  practically  unlimited 
number  of  possible  reactions  which  give  us  what  we 
call  free  will  and  choice,  there  comes  a  conviction 
that  some  modes  of  action  are  higher  than  others; 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  259 

and  so  a  scale  of  moral  values  comes  into  being."* 
Nor  is  it  merely  that  values,  in  the  strict  sense, 
are  created;  nor  that  new  values  come  into  being. 
But  with  the  enlargement  of  mind  and  its  more  per- 
fect organization,  there  arises  a  new  method  of  ap- 
praising values,  and  so  a  new  type  of  value  alto- 
gether. I  mean  of  course  the  so-called  absolute  val- 
ues. Absolute  values  are  never  absolute  in  the  sense 
of  absolute  completeness;  they  are  relative  to  two 
things — to  external  reality  and  to  our  mental  powers 
and  organization.^  They  are  abstractions;  we  gen- 
eralize the  value  in  our  minds,  and  at  the  same  time 
raise  it  to  the  highest  pitch  of  intensity  we  can.  An 
interesting  point  arises  from  this  way  of  thinking. 
Apart  from  the  guarantee  of  our  own  convictions, 
the  observable  direction  of  living  nature  is  our  guar- 
antee of  right:  or  one  had  better  say  that  it  is  at 
once  the  guarantee  and  the  touchstone  of  our  con- 
victions. But  two  things  may  be  moving  in  the  same 
direction,  and,  if  one  be  moving  much  slower  than 
the  other,  the  slower  may  impede  the  faster;  a  pedes- 
trian procession  making  eastward  along  Fleet  Street 

*See  Haldane,  '21;  Thouless,  '23. 

•A  confusion  of  thought  easily  arises  here.  It  may  be  abso- 
lutely true  that  2  and  2  make  4;  we  may  be  absolutely  right  in 
certain  cases  to  tell  a  lie;  or  may  find  an  expression  of  absolute 
beauty  in  some  one  lovely  thing.  But  we  may  grow  to  find  that 
same  thing  aesthetically  unsatisfying;  we  can  imagine  a  state  of 
society  in  which  it  would  never  be  right  to  lie;  while  our  correct 
knowledge  of  elementary  arithmetic  is  something  very  partial  and 
incomplete  considered  in  relation  to  mathematical  truth  as  a 
whole. 


260  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

will  hold  up  the  life  of  the  city  for  a  time,  and  cows 
walking  along  railways  are  treated  as  obstacles  by 
trains  proceeding  in  the  same  direction.  So  it  comes 
about  that  much  that  was  once  progressive  in  organic 
evolution  has  become  an  obstacle  or  a  drag  to  psy- 
chozoic  evolution;  it  is  relatively  retrogressive,  and, 
from  our  present  standpoint,  bad.  To  take  the  sim- 
plest and  most  fundamental  example:  evolution  by 
blind  natural  selection  was  the  method  of  progress  for 
organisms  below  man.  Unceasing  struggle  and  cour- 
age was  the  chief  factor  in  producing  the  grandeur 
and  strength  of  the  lion,  the  swiftness  and  grace  of 
deer,  the  brilliance  and  lightness  of  the  birds.  But 
if  the  same  end  can  be  obtained  both  more  quickly 
and  more  bloodlessly  by  new  methods,  then  the  old 
stands  condemned.  Here  lies  the  key  to  the  problem 
propounded  by  Huxley  in  his  Romanes  Lecture — the 
problem  of  man's  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  cosmic 
process,  at  once  sprung  from  it  by  gradual  genera- 
tion and  separated  from  it  by  an  absolute  and  un- 
bridgeable chasm,  at  once  one  with  it  and  in  deadly 
combat  with  it  and  all  its  ways. 

Our  mode  of  envisaging  the  problem  illuminates 
it,  and  shows  it  as  inevitable  and  intelligible  instead 
of  insoluble  and  tormenting;  and  illuminates  too 
many  other  minor  problems  of  good  and  evil.  But 
all  this  is  a  side-issue:  revenons  a  nos  vioutoiis. 

Unknown,  or  neutral,  or  hostile  power:  a  move- 
ment similar  in  direction  to  the  direction  in  which 
history  on  the  whole  shows  we  are  moving,  and  to 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  261 

that  which  we  desire  with  our  highest  aspirations, 
but  operating  blindly;  an  acceleration  of  that  move- 
ment by  the  coming  of  mind  to  biological  predomi- 
nance, with  certain  consequent  minor  changes  in  di- 
rection by  major  changes  in  speed  and  in  methods. 
Three  tendencies,  but  all  founded  in  one  unity,  and 
each  arising  out  of  the  other — that  is  the  picture 
drawn  for  us  by  the  present  state  of  science.  In  this 
sense,  and  in  this  only,  can  it  be  said  that  "all  things 
work  together  for  righteousness." 

One  word  on  an  important  side-issue — the  problem 
of  evil  in  man,  of  stagnancy  and  degeneration  in 
organic  evolution.  Degeneration  often  does  occur 
— a  reversal,  in  other  words,  of  the  main  tendency. 
But  the  positive  fact  remains  that  the  maximum  level 
is  progressively  raised,  and  that  we  fmd  that  stagna- 
tion of  development  and  even  sometimes  degenera- 
tion have  been  factors  indirectly  helping  on  the  main 
direction. 

We  must  accept  the  positive  main  direction  for 
what  it  is — an  external  sanction  of  faith;  confess 
that  we  do  not  understand  the  detailed  working  of 
the  whole,  but  see  in  the  change  of  methods  brought 
about  by  the  rise  of  mind  a  hope  that  we  shall  grad- 
ually learn  at  least  to  dispense  with  much  waste  and 
evil  and  degeneration  in  the  further  course  of  evolu- 
tion. 

This  main  direction  gives  us  cause  for  optimism. 
The  exceptions  to  it  temper  that  optimism.  But  tlie 
direction  is  there. 


262  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

As  we  shall  see  later,  we  may  either  call  the  sum  of 
the  forces  acting  in  the  cosmos  the  manifestations 
of  God,  who  in  this  case  must  be  the  Absolute  God, 
and  unknowable  except  through  these  manifestations. 
Or  we  may  confine  the  term  God  to  its  anthropo- 
logical usage,  as  denoting  the  objects  of  human  re- 
ligion, in  which  case  we  must  admit  that  the  term 
God  as  understood  by  man  is  constituted  by  man's 
idea  of  the  forces  acting  in  the  cosmos,  so  that  not 
only  are  these  forces  involved,  not  only  a  possible 
Absolute  God  behind  them,  but  also  the  organizing 
power  of  human  mind. 

I  wish  you  here  to  agree  to  my  adopting  the  sec- 
ond alternative  and  giving  the  name  of  God  to  the 
sum  of  the  forces  acting  in  the  cosmos  as  perceived 
and  grasped  by  human  mind.  We  can  therefore  now 
say  that  God  is  one,  but  that  though  one,  has  sev- 
eral aspects.  There  is  one  aspect  of  God  which  is 
neutral  to  us,  in  a  way  hostile,  mere  Power  operating 
in  the  vastness  of  the  stellar  universes,  apprehended 
only  as  orderly,  tending  in  a  direction  which  appears 
to  be  in  the  long  run  inimical.  It  is  to  this  aspect  of 
God  that  Mr.  Wells  has  given  the  name  of  the  Veiled 
Being — a  somewhat  primitive  term  for  a  true  idea. 
There  is  another  aspect,  which  is  the  one  seen  operat- 
ing in  that  sphere  which  comprises  the  whole  of  life 
upon  this  earth — a  sphere  infinitesimal  in  relation  to 
the  whole,  yet  still  vast  in  relation  to  ourselves.  This 
aspect  of  God  is  our  refuge  and  guarantee,  for  here 
we  find  our  assurance  that  our  human  life  is  a  part  of 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  263 

a  whole  that  is  not  antagonistic,  but  moves  in  the 
same  general  direction  as  do  our  history  and  our 
aims.  There  does  exist,  in  Matthew  Arnold's  words, 
"a  power,  not  ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness." And  this  second  aspect  is  not  wholly  separate 
from  the  first,  in  spite  of  its  difference  of  direction; 
for  the  first  is  its  parent,  physically  and  temporally, 
and  the  direction  of  biological  progress  is  the  con- 
tinuation of  a  line  of  development  marked  out,  with- 
in the  opposed  inorganic  direction,  even  from  the 
first. 

Next,  there  is  a  more  immediate  and  more  often 
demanded  assurance  that  we,  as  individuals  or  as 
single  communities  in  space  or  time,  are  at  one  with 
humanity  as  a  whole.  Here  it  is  that  we  look  to 
the  third  aspect  of  God,  which  enshrines  the  directive 
forces  operating  in  man.  These  directive  forces  are 
our  instincts,  our  needs,  our  values,  our  ideals.  When 
those  are  harmonized  with  each  other  and  with  the 
outer  world  by  reason  and  experience,  they  form  a 
power  which  we  can  see  has  been  directive,  norma- 
tive in  the  past,  and  will  continue  to  be  so  in  the 
future.  It  alters  with  man's  development;  but  after 
a  first  rudimentary  phase,  its  main  outlines,  its  type 
of  organization  remain  the  same,  for  man's  instincts 
and  ideals  do  not  greatly  change,  and  their  harmoni- 
zation with  each  other  and  with  experience  will  gen- 
erally proceed  in  the  same  broad  way.  Although  in 
a  sense  this  aspect  is  the  smallest,  as  comprising  the 
smallest  physical  field,  yet  in  another  it  is  the  larg- 


264  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

est,  since  man's  ideals  are  in  themselves  unlimited, 
non-fmite;  and  the  values  involved,  to  our  present 
type  of  mind,  appear  ultimate.  This  third  aspect  of 
God  is  again  historically  the  offspring  of  the  second, 
and  through  the  second  of  the  first. 

Matter,  life,  mind — this  is  the  simplest  classifica- 
tion of  phenomena.  By  means  of  processes  analo- 
gous to  obtaining  a  resultant  by  the  parallelogram  of 
forces,  we  can  obtain  a  resultant  of  material  opera- 
tions in  general,  vital  operations  in  general,  and 
mental  operations  in  general,  numerous  and  varied 
in  direction  though  they  be.  Life  is  the  link  between 
the  other  two.  Living  matter  is  so  definitely  one 
with  non-living  matter,  not  at  all  obviously  one  with 
mind;  yet  the  direction  of  living  matter  is  obviously 
similar  to  that  of  mind,  not  at  all  obviously  one 
with  that  of  non-living  matter. 

*****  S|!  * 

It  is  a  simple  fact  that  the  conception  which  man 
has  of  the  universe  and  its  relation  to  himself  exer- 
cises important  effects  upon  his  life.  A  name  there- 
fore is  needed  for  this  anthropological  phenomenon. 
God  is  the  usual  name  applied,  and  we  shall  retain 
it  in  default  of  another,  premissing  that  the  word, 
like  many  similar  general  terms — 'love,"  or  "life,"  or 
"beauty,"  say — can  be  defined  and  applied  in  many 
ways,  and  that  we  apply  it  here  in  a  particular  and 
perhaps  somewhat  novel  sense. 

God  in  this  sense  is  the  universe,  not  as  such,  but 
so  far  as  grasped  as  a  whole  by  a  mind,  embodied  in 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  265 

an  idea,  ^  and  in  consequence  capable  of  influencing 
that  mind,  and  through  it  the  whole  course  of  events. 
It  is  not  grasped  as  a  mere  sum  of  details,  but,  how- 
ever vaguely  and  imperfectly,  as  a  single  idea,  unitary 
in  spite  of  its  complexity.  Nor  is  it  the  universe  in 
itself,  but  only  so  far  as  it  has  been  thus  grasped  by 
mind.  There  exists  no  other  meaning  of  the  term 
which,  on  analysis,  is  found  to  convey  anything,  or 
at  least  anything  scientific  or  comprehensible,  to  us. 
We  may  reason  that  there  is  an  Absolute  God  behind 
the  universe  and  our  idea  of  it.  But  we  have  no 
proof  of  this  statement,  and  such  an  Absolute  God  is, 
as  Spencer  pointed  out,  an  Unknowable,  and  accord- 
ingly no  concern  of  ours.  That  part  and  these  as- 
pects of  the  universe  which  have  been  grasped  by  us 
may  prove  to  contain  the  key  to  many  of  our  diffi- 
culties; meanwhile  we  can  only  be  humble  and  admit 
that  our  idea  of  God,  even  in  this  restricted  sense,  is 
still  extremely  incomplete:  and  in  this  sense  there 
is  a  God  far  greater  than  our  present  idea  and  knowl- 
edge of  God,  only  waiting  to  be  discovered. 

That  which  it  is  essential  to  establish  is  our  v^^ay  of 
looking  at  the  problem.     The  universe  does  come  into 

6  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  a  scientific  treatment  of  the 
problem  may  force  an  author  almost  unwittingly  to  similar  con- 
clusions. For  instance,  in  Jevons'  book  ('10)  the  term  "God" 
hardly  occurs  at  all,  whereas  the  phrase  "the  idea  of  God"  is  to 
be  found  on  nearly  every  page.  If,  as  we  are  urging,  God  as 
efficient  agent  in  the  world  and  as  reality  in  contact  with  human 
beings  is  outer  world  organized  as  idea,  the  reason  for  such  peri- 
phrasis at  once  appears. 


266  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

relation  with  our  minds,  and  there,  owing  to  the  way 
it  and  our  minds  are  organized,  generates  an  idea 
which  exerts  an  influence  upon  us. 

The  external  basis  of  the  idea  of  God  is  thus  con- 
stituted by  the  forces  operating  in  the  universe.  The 
universe  is  a  unitary  whole,  greater  and  mxore  power- 
ful than  ourselves,  and  its  operations  have  resultants 
in  certain  main  directions — these  are  phenomena 
which  we  constatate  like  any  other  phenomena. 
They,  and  that  other  phenomenon  of  our  contact 
with  the  Universe  and  our  exposure  to  the  play  of  its 
forces,  give  us  our  objective  knowledge  of  God.  The 
rest  of  our  idea  of  God,  the  inner  component,  depends 
upon  the  mode  of  action  of  our  minds. 

So  far,  then,  we  have  shown  that  recent  advance 
in  science,  particularly  in  our  understanding  of  evo- 
lution, has  enabled  us  to  give  a  more  objective  ac- 
count than  ever  before  of  what  is  involved  in  the 
concept  God,  and  so  to  pave  the  way  for  a  consen- 
sus of  thought  on  the  question. 

It  will  be  observed  that  there  is  no  idea  of  person- 
ality implicit  in  this  conception  of  God — God  may 
or  may  not  possess  personality.  It  will  be  for  us 
later  to  investigate  that  particular  aspect  of  the  prob- 
lem. 

It  now  remains  to  deal  with  the  inner  reality.  Man 
has  a  wholly  new  type  of  mind.  He  is  social  and 
capable  of  speech.  He  generalizes,  and  he  has  a 
very  highly  developed  power  of  association.  This 
combination  gives  him   a  great  many  possibilities 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  267 

hitherto  denied  to  life.  In  the  first  place,  he  is  able 
to  order  his  experiences  in  a  totally  new  way,  differ- 
ing from  the  old  very  much  as  a  classified  card- 
index  differs  from  a  rough  diary-record  of  events. 
The  organization  of  his  mind  is  elastic,  capable  of  in- 
definite expanion  and  of  specialization  in  any  direc- 
tion. 

That  being  so,  there  will  be  always  parts  of  his 
mind  wholly  or  at  least  partially  undeveloped;  and 
in  any  case  the  capacities  which  he  must  employ  in 
his  everyday  life,  the  region  of  his  mind  illuminated 
by  the  attention  needed  in  the  struggle  for  existence, 
constitute  but  a  fraction  of  his  mental  self  and  its 
potentialities. 

This  brings  us  on  to  one  of  the  most  important 
achievements  of  modern  psychology — the  discovery 
and  analysis  of  the  subconscious.  Impossible  here 
to  go  into  detail;  we  must  content  ourselves  with 
a  few  broad  statements.  When  we  speak  of  the  sub- 
conscious mind,  we  mean  that  in  man  there  exist 
processes  which  appear  for  many  reasons  to  be  of 
the  same  nature  as  those  of  the  normal  mind  (in  that 
they  are  associated  with  the  same  parts  of  the  nerv- 
ous system,  fulfil  the  same  general  biological  func- 
tions, and  probably  operate  through  similar  mecha- 
nisms), with  the  single  exception  that  we  are  not 
conscious  of  them  as  such."^ 

The  conscious  mind,  that  which  we  think  of  as 

7  See  Prince,  '06  and  '16;  Freud,  '22;  Jung,  '19;  Rivers,  '20; 
Brown,  '22. 


268  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

the  basis  of  our  mental  individuality,  as  our  per- 
sonal being,  is  the  result  of  a  long  process  of  organ- 
ization. We  come  into  the  world  with  a  set  of  in- 
stinctive and  emotional  reactions  only  waiting  their 
proper  stimuli  to  be  fired  off,  with  a  capacity  for 
learning,  for  amassing  experience,  and  a  capacity 
for  modifying  our  instincts  and  our  behaviour  ac- 
cording to  our  experience.  We  incorporate  experi- 
ence in  ourselves,  and  in  so  doing  we  alter  the  orig- 
inal basis  of  our  reactions;  a  strongly  emotional  ex- 
perience colours  all  that  is  closely  associated  with  it; 
and  so  after  birth  we  are  continually  making  our 
mental  microcosm  not  only  larger  but  qualitatively 
more  complex,  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  before 
birth  our  body  grew  not  only  in  size,  but  also  in  com- 
plexity of  organization. 

Parts  of  experience  or  of  inherited  tendencies  may 
fail  to  become  organically  connected  with  the  main 
parts  of  our  minds,  simply  because  attention  has 
never  been  focussed  on  them,  or  has  not  attempted  to 
bring  them  into  relation  with  the  rest.  They  are, 
shall  we  say,  like  bricks  which  might  have  been  used 
in  a  building,  but  have  been  left  lying  on  the  ground 
by  the  workmen. 

Still  more  remarkable  are  the  methods  by  which 
harmony  is  achieved  in  the  personal  mind.  It  is 
obvious  that  a  conflict  of  any  sort  between  parts  of 
the  mind  will  waste  energy,  will  prevent  a  clear-cut 
reaction  being  given  in  either  direction,  and  so  con- 
stitute a  grave  biological  disadvantage  by  making  us 


RELIGION    AND    SCIENCE  269 

fall  between  two  stools.  If  a  child  gets  a  serious 
fright  in  the  dark,  darkness  will  tend  to  arouse  fear. 
But  darkness  also  comes  with  evening  and  with  the 
time  for  sleep.  Two  modes  of  reaction  to  darkness 
are  therefore  given,  and  they  are  self-contradictory. 
One  part  of  the  mind  comes  down  its  pathway  to- 
wards action,  and  finds  itself  met  by  another  which 
is  coming  along  the  same  path  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. If  neither  moves,  there  is  a  conflict;  in  our 
hypothetical  case  sleep  is  delayed;  and  if  it  comes, 
is  disturbed  by  nightmares — the  echoes  of  the  fright 
— and  the  childish  organism  suffers. 

Exactly  similar  conflicts  in  which  fear  plays  a  part 
may  occur  in  adult  life,  e.g.,  in  so-called  "shell- 
shock";  or  the  sex-instinct  may  come  into  conflict 
with  other  parts  of  the  personality. 

These  conflicts  are  resolved  through  one  tendency 
or  part  of  experience  being  passed  into  the  sub- 
conscious, where  it  no  longer  can  meet  its  opponent 
on  the  path  to  action.  And  this  passage  into  the 
subconscious  can  be  apparently  automatic,  unwit- 
ting, when  it  is  called  suppression,  or  performed  only 
by  voluntary  effort,  when  it  is  called  repression.  In 
the  former  case,  it  would  appear  that  the  conflict  may 
wholly  or  almost  wholly  cease;  whereas  in  the  second, 
the  repressed  portion  of  mind  is  perpetually  striving 
to  come  to  the  surface  again,  and  must  thus  per- 
petually be  held  down  by  force. 

If  we  hold  by  our  metaphor  of  the  building,  then 
in  suppression,  bricks  which  would  not  go  well  with 


270  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

the  rest  are  stacked  quietly  in  the  cellars;  while  in 
repression,  part  of  the  workmen  want  to  build  a 
different  sort  of  building,  and  have  to  be  forcibly 
held  down  by  some  of  the  rest  to  prevent  their  do- 
ing so. 

But  in  whatever  way  the  subconscious  may  be  or- 
ganized it  is  always  with  us,  and  there  will  always 
be  a  remainder  of  our  soul,  or  of  its  possibilities, 
which  is  not  incorporated  in  our  personal  life  at  all,  as 
well  as  much  which  is  not  closely  organized  with  the 
main  everyday  personality,  but  is  connected  with  it 
only  by  vague  and  loose  bonds,  approachable  only 
by  narrow  pathways  instead  of  by  broad  roads. 

There  is  another  process  at  work  in  the  human 
mind  which  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  our 
problem.  I  mean  the  process  of  sublimation.  If  it 
is  not  easy  to  give  a  short  and  clear  definition  of  sub- 
limation, at  least  the  process  is  familiar  to  all.  The 
commonest  example  is  "falling  in  love,''  where  the 
simple  sex-instinct  becomes  intertwined  with  other 
instincts  and  with  past  emotional  experience,  and 
projects  itself  in  wholly  new  guise  upon  its  object. 
We  may  perhaps  best  say  that  a  sublimated  instinct 
has  more  and  higher  values  attached  to  its  satisfac- 
tion than  one  unsublimated.  The  mere  satisfaction 
of  the  sexual  impulse  need  be  little  more  than  a 
physiological  desirability;  but  the  satisfaction  of 
passionate  love  involves  every  fibre  of  the  mental 
organism,  hopes  and  ideals  converging  with  memories 
and  instincts  on  to  the  highest  pitch  of  being. 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  271 

In  such  a  case  sublimation  occurs  with  the  normal 
object  of  the  instinct.  But  the  elasticity  of  man's 
mind  permits  of  further  complication;  the  instinct 
may  be  not  only  sublimated  but  attached  to  new  ob- 
jects. Through  the  cogs  and  spirals  of  the  mind, 
the  sexual  instinct  may  find  an  outlet  at  higher  levels, 
and  contribute  to  the  driving  force  of  adventurous 
living,  of  art,  or  as  we  may  see  in  many  mystics — St. 
Teresa  for  example — of  religious  ecstasy. 

It  is  as  if  a  swift  stream  were  falling  into  under- 
ground channels  below  the  mill  of  our  being,  where 
it  could  churn  and  roar  away  to  waste.  But  some  of 
it  is  led  off  at  a  higher  level,  and  we  can  learn  to  lead 
off  still  more;  and  we  can  make  an  installation  of 
pipes  whereby  it  can  be  taken  up  to  the  original  level, 
and  made  to  fall  through  new  machines  and  do  any 
work  we  may  ask  of  it. 

The  mechanism  of  sublimation,  however,  deserves 
a  few  more  words.  Recent  work  in  biology  has 
shown  that  in  low  forms  of  animals  and  in  early 
stages  of  high  forms,  the  head-region  is  in  a  certain 
sense  dominant  to  the  rest,  in  that  it  forms  first  and 
independently;  but  that,  once  present,  it  exerts  a 
formative  influence  upon  the  rest  of  the  body,  keep- 
ing the  various  organs  in  some  way  under  control, 
making  them  different  from  what  they  would  other- 
wise have  been,  and  so  moulding  them  to  the  part  of 
a  single  and  higher  whole. 

An  extremely  similar  process  is  at  work  in  sub- 
limation.    Ideas  and  ideals  can  be  naturally  domi- 


272  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

nant  over  others,  or  they  can  become  dominant 
through  becoming  associated  with  primarily  domi- 
nant ideas,  or  by  receiving  a  larger  share  of  atten- 
tion. Attention,  concentration,  what  you  will,  is 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  mental  functions.  Not 
only  can  the  metaphor  of  intense  illumination  of  a 
particular  field  be  justly  used  of  it,  but  we  may  say 
that  it  seems  to  accelerate  the  flow  of  menal  process 
through  a  particular  channel,  and  so  to  draw  into 
that  channel  the  contents  of  other  channels  in  con- 
nection with  it,  just  as  a  rapid  flow  of  water  through 
a  pipe  sucks  in  water  from  connected  pipes. 

As  a  result  of  this,  sublimation  involves  not  the 
suppression  or  repression  of  instincts  and  emotional 
experiences,  nor  merely  the  summation  of  them  with 
another  instinct,  but  their  utilization  as  parts  of  a 
new  whole,  of  which  the  dominant  instinct  is  like 
the  controlling  head. 

When  the  sex-instinct  is  repressed,  the  emotional 
and  religious  life  is  meagre,  though  often  violent. 
When  the  sex-instinct  and  the  religious  feeling  exist 
side  by  side,  without  conflict  but  without  union,  you 
have  "the  natural  man"  of  St.  Paul;  but  when  the 
religious  ideals  are  dominant,  and  can  catch  up 
the  sex-instinct  into  themselves,  and  in  so  doing  give 
it  a  new  form  and  a  new  direction,  then  you  get  one 
of  the  highest  types  of  emotional  lives.  Or  fear  may 
be  sublimated  to  reverence;  or  sex  again  to  art  or  to 
philanthropy. 

In  every  case,  a  new  and  more  complicated  mental 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  273 

activity  or  organ  is  arrived  at;  and  the  same  process 
that  we  saw  at  work  in  biological  evolution — the 
creation  of  ever  more  complex  units — is  thereby  con- 
tinued. 

Then  we  come  to  the  fact  that  man  displays  dis- 
harmonies of  mental  construction,  together  with  an 
innate  hankering  after  harmony.  The  most  obvious 
disharmony  is  that  between  the  instincts  that  are 
self-regarding  and  those  that  are  other-regarding — 
between  man's  egotistic  and  his  social  tendencies. 

It  appears  that  man  became  gregarious  quite  late 
in  evolutionary  history.  Through  natural  selection, 
sufficient  ''herd-instinct"  was  developed  to  ensure 
that  men  would  on  the  whole  stand  by  the  tribe  in 
danger,  that  the  tribe  should  become  a  real  biological 
unit.  But  it  was  impossible  wholly  to  harmonize 
these  new  social  instincts,  even  in  the  simplest  socie- 
ties, with  the  old,  deeper-rooted,  individualist  tend- 
encies; and  as  life  became  more  complex  and  choice 
wider,  conflict  grew  more  and  more  frequent.^ 

Another  obvious  disharmony  in  modern  civilized 
communities  is  the  fact  that  sexual  maturity  occurs 
long  before  marriage  is  possible  or  desirable. 

In  all  this,  there  is  inevitably  a  field  for  all  the  va- 
rious combinations  of  suppression,  or  repression,  or 
sublimation. 

Man's  gregariousness,  together  with  his  power  of 
speech,  learning,  and  generalization,  have  led  to  the 
development  of  a  new  thing  in  the  world — persistent 

8  See  Trotter,  '19. 


274  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

and  cumulative  tradition.  I  use  tradition  in  the 
broadest  sense,  as  denoting  all  that  owes  its  being  to 
the  mind  of  man,  and  is  handed  down,  by  speech  or 
imitation  or  in  some  permanent  record,  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  Language,  general  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong,  convention,  invention,  national  feeling — 
all  this  and  much  more,  constituting  the  more  im- 
portant part  of  the  human  individual's  environment 
— is  part  of  tradition;  and  tradition  is  pre-eminently 
and  inevitably  social.  However  individualistic  we 
may  wish  to  be  we  cannot  escape  modelling  by  this 
social  environment. 

The  general  effect  of  man's  gregarious  instinct  is 
that  he  desires  to  find  himself  in  harmony  with  some 
traditions,  with  the  ideas  that  modern  jargon  likes  to 
call  the  herd  to  which  he  belongs.  The  herd  ideas, 
the  traditions,  may  be  those  of  a  nation  or  of  a 
stratum  within  the  nation;  of  a  whole  class  or  of  a 
clique;  of  science  or  of  art;  of  a  retired  monasticism, 
or  of  an  all-embracing  world-civilization.  But  they 
are  always  herd  ideas,  and  through  them  man  is  al- 
ways member  of  some  community,  even  though  that 
community  be  tiny,  or  consist  mainly  of  writers  dead 
and  gone;  and  he  always  strives  to  put  himself  in 
harmony  with  the  traditions  of  that  community. 

^  3ft  J^  ^  ^  ^  ^ 

A  long-winded  introduction  enough;  now  for  the 
bearing  of  it.  One  of  the  essentials  of  every  religion 
is  its  treatment  of  the  subconscious,  is  its  view  and  its 
practice  as  regards  the  relation  between  the  person- 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  275 

ally-organized  part  of  the  mind  to  the  remaining  non- 
personal  reservoirs.  At  first  the  non-personal  part 
is  regarded  as  being  wholly  outside  the  organism,  and 
its  occasional  flooding  up  into  the  narrower  ego  is 
regarded  as  an  operation  of  an  external  personality, 
a  spirit,  a  God.  Comparatively  late,  it  is  recognized 
as  part  of  the  organism,  but  the  process  by  which  con- 
nection is  made  is  still  regarded  as  divine,  and  called 
inspiration.  Such  ideas  belong  to  the  adolescence  of 
the  race,  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  the  discovery 
and  acquisition  of  great  tracts  of  this  subconscious 
territory  will  always  necessarily  constitute  part  of 
the  adolescence  of  the  individual.  But  any  devel- 
oped religion  must  always  in  some  way  help  to  make 
these  great  reserves  of  power  accessible,  always  teach 
the  enlargements  of  the  personal  ego  which  their  con- 
quest brings  about.  This  is  one  of  the  ways  in 
which,  to  use  current  religious  phraseology,  self  may 
be  lost,  and  found  again  on  a  different  plane. 

Religion  must  further  always  provide  some  in- 
ternal harmony,  in  counterpart  to  the  harmony  de- 
manded in  the  unitary  comprehension  of  external 
reality.  The  various  activities  and  experiences  of 
life,  as  they  are  originally  given  by  heredity  to  the 
child,  are  either  independent,  or  else  antagonistic  and 
disharmonious.  There  must  be  some  means  pro- 
vided for  bringing  all  of  them  into  a  true  organiza- 
tion— in  other  words  into  a  whole  which,  though  yet 
single,  is  composed  of  co-operating  parts.  Here 
again  the  actual  responses  of  actual  religions  have 


276  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

been  many  and  various;  but  they  all  operate  by  sup- 
pression, repression,  and  sublimation,  or  by  a  com- 
bination of  these. 

It  can  at  once  be  said  that  sublimation  is  the  right 
and  highest  way,  and  that  two  of  the  criteria  of  re- 
ligious progress  are  to  be  found  in  the  stress  laid  upon 
sublimation,  and  in  the  enlargement  and  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  dominant  ideas  at  work  in  the  sublimat- 
ing process.  It  is  the  right  and  highest  way  because 
through  it  no  spiritual  energy  is  wasted,  and  the  age- 
long path  of  progress  towards  ever  higher  levels  of 
complexity  in  organization  is  still  continued. 
Among  religious  teachers,  both  Jesus  and  Paul  laid 
great  stress  on  this — on  the  freedom,  the  emancipa- 
tion from  the  shackles  of  an  external  law  made  pos- 
sible by  the  apprehension  of  some  highest  harmoniz- 
ing principle  and  the  subordination  of  all  other  ideas 
and  desires  to  it.  Once  one  can  see  and  learn  to 
follow  such  a  principle,  whatever  one  does  is  in  a 
sense  right,  because  one's  desires  are  all  subordinate 
to  a  desire  for  right,  and  to  something  which  is  right. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say  that  they  appear 
right  to  oneself,  that  the  haunting,  terrible  sense  of 
sin  is  laid  to  rest,  and  one's  life  liberated  into  free 
activity,  one's  energy  made  all  available  for  achieve- 
ment. 

The  sense  of  sin,  if  not  universal  at  one  or  other 
period  of  life,  is  almost  so,  and  comes  from  an  appre- 
hension of  inner  disharmony.  As  one  would  expect, 
selfishness  and  sex  are  its  most  common  roots;  and 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  277 

whenever  it  exists,  then  the  necessary  preliminary 
to  any  further  progress  of  one's  being  is  that  it 
should  be  made  to  disappear.  It  can  disappear,  as 
in  St.  Paul's  natural  man,  by  a  suppression  of  part  of 
the  mind  or  of  the  connection  between  parts,  or  by 
a  failure  to  make  certain  connections,  or  it  can  be 
eradicated  by  a  growth  of  callousness;  or — and  I 
take  it  that  this  is  the  proper  religious  solution — by 
discovering  a  clue  which  will  harmonize  the  two  ap- 
parently opposed  sections  of  experience,  the  two  an- 
tagonistic tendencies,  and  so  resolve  the  problem 
with  no  loss  of  energy  or  of  vital  possibilities. 
******* 

Finally,  there  remains  to  be  considered  the  mode 
in  which  the  mind  may  best  organize  the  ideas  of 
external  reality  given  to  it  by  its  pure  cognitive  and 
intellectual  faculties. 

Even  from  the  purely  scientific  point  of  view,  gen- 
eralization is  obviously  of  value.  When  we  have 
found  unity  in  the  outer  world's  apparent  diversity, 
direction  in  its  apparent  disorderliness,  we  have  ob- 
viously achieved  a  great  gain.  But  religion  appears 
to  demand  something  more.  If  for  a  moment  we 
look  at  the  matter  pragmatically,  we  shall  find  that 
a  number  of  the  great  mystics  (and  a  large  majority 
of  those  of  our  own  occidental  type  and  tradition) 
speak  of  their  experiences  of  "divine  communion" 
as  being  communion  with  a  person. 

What  does  this  mean?  We  have  seen  that  a  purely 
intellectual  analysis  gives  us  no  handle  for  finding 


278  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

personality  in  God.  Can  we  suppose  that  this  di- 
rect intuition  gives  us  that  handle?  To  say  so,  to  my 
mind,  would  be  simple  obscurantism.  Intuition,  if 
it  shows  us  reality,  can  only  show  a  reality  capable 
in  the  long  run  of  intellectual  analysis;  to  deny  this 
is  to  deny  all  our  premisses.  No:  their  intuition 
shows  us  that  something  akin  to  personality  is  per- 
ceived, but  permits  no  pronouncement  as  to  whether 
its  resemblance  to  personality  is  given  in  its  real 
nature,  or  introduced  into  it  by  their  thought. 

If  we  look  into  the  history  of  religion,  we  find 
over  and  over  again  that  man  has  taken  something 
from  his  own  mind  and  projected  it  into  the  external 
world.  The  magic  power  of  fetishes,  the  tabus  in- 
curred by  contact  with  certain  objects,  the  endow- 
ment of  the  idea  of  external  powers,  of  God,  with  hu- 
man form,  the  ascription  of  miraculous  influence  to 
places  or  things — in  every  case  there  has  been  this 
projection.  And  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
here  again  there  has  been  a  similar  occurrence,  that 
man  has  organized  his  idea  of  external  power  after 
the  pattern  of  a  personality,  and  has  then  ascribed 
this  type  of  organization  to  the  external  power  itself. 
This  projection  Blake  symbolized  in  a  sentence: 
'Thus  men  forgot  that  All  Deities  reside  in  the  Hu- 
man breast." 

The  rival  schools  of  psychology  may  disagree: 
but  all  are  agreed  that  some  modes  of  thinking  are 
more  primitive  than  others,  and  even  in  the  most 
educated  amongst  us  tend  to  persist,  often  in  the  sub- 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  279 

conscious,  side  by  side  with  more  developed  methods 
that  have  arisen  later. 

The  use  of  concrete  symbols  or  images  is  the  most 
widespread  of  these  primitive  modes  of  thought.  It 
is  natural  that  the  more  complex  should  at  the  first 
be  described  in  terms  of  the  less  complex,  that  those 
experiences  for  which  no  proper  terminology  has  been 
hammered  out  should  be  given  names  out  of  man's 
existing  vocabulary.  That  is  inevitable:  but  there 
is  an  even  more  fundamental  process  at  work.  It 
seems  as  if  the  human  mind  works,  on  its  most  primi- 
tive levels,  by  means  of  image-formation,  and  that 
emotions  and  concepts  for  which  no  simple  image 
exist  may  call  up  symbolic  images  by  association  and 
indeed  often  dress  themselves  in  these  new  clothes 
before  they  present  themselves  to  consciousness. 
Some  such  process  appears  to  take  place  in  dreams 
(including  day-dreams!)  and  possibly  in  the  ordi- 
nary thought-processes  of  savages.  More  advanced 
modes  of  thought  substitute  the  currency  of  an  arbi- 
trary token  such  as  a  word  or  a  formula  for  the  barter 
of  images  and  concrete  symbols;  the  freshness  and 
vividness  of  the  image  is  lost,  but  more  efficient  and 
speedier  working  is  attained.  However,  in  most  of 
us  the  concrete  image-using  mode  of  thought  is  a  re- 
lief from  the  apparently  less  natural  and  more  arti- 
ficial (though  more  efficient)  operations  of  reason, 
and  we  relapse  into  it,  wholly  or  partially,  more 
often  than  we  realize. 

This  unconscious  irrational  tendency  to  symbol- 


280  ESSAYS    OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

ism,  together  with  the  other  tendency  to  project  ideas 
properly  attaching  to  the  subjective  world  into  ex- 
ternal objects  and  processes — these  between  them  ac- 
count for  much  of  the  modes  of  expression  so  far 
found  for  religious  belief;  and,  since  the  majority  of 
human  beings  have  a  profound  distaste  for  sustained 
or  difficult  thought,  it  is  likely  that  they  will  continue 
to  account  for  much  in  the  future. 

These  are  facts  of  extreme  importance.  The  pro- 
fessional sceptic  is  at  once  tempted  to  exclaim  that 
every  such  projection  and  illogical  symbolism  is  illu- 
sion through  and  through,  and  must  be  wholly  swept 
aside.  He  would  be  wrong.  We  each  of  us  must 
know  from  our  own  experience  the  "influence"  (to 
use  a  general  term)  which  may  inhere  in  certain 
things  and  places.  True  that  the  influence  is  of  our 
own  mind's  making;  but  it  is  none  the  less  real,  not 
only  as  a  momentary  existence,  but,  as  the  term  im- 
plies, as  exerting  a  definite  and  often  a  great  effect 
upon  our  lives.  The  lover  who  cherishes  a  ring  or 
a  lock  of  hair;  the  man  who  is  drawn  back  to  the 
haunts  of  his  childhood  or  his  youth;  the  mind  re- 
freshing itself  with  some  loved  poem  or  picture; — 
what  do  we  have  in  these  and  innumerable  other 
instances  but  a  peculiarity  of  mind  whereby  it  may 
take  external  objects  into  itself  and  invest  them  with 
its  own  emotions  and  ideas,  in  such  a  way  that  those 
same  objects  may  later  reflect  their  stored-up  emo- 
tion back  again  into  the  mind?  It  operates  by  a 
form  of  association;  but  the  actual  working  resembles 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  281 

the  charging  of  a  battery,  which  may  subsequently 
discharge  back.  We  have  in  it,  in  fact,  a  special 
faculty  which,  if  rightly  used,  is  of  the  greatest  prac- 
tical value.  Further,  the  symbol,  if  rightly  used  and 
rightly  limited,  is  of  service  to  most  minds  in  giving 
a  more  or  less  concrete  cage  for  the  winged,  elusive, 
and  hardly-retained  creatures  of  abstract  thought. 

So  too,  the  organization  of  the  idea  of  God  into  a 
form  resembling  a  personality  appears  defmitely  to 
have,  at  least  with  the  majority  of  people  belonging 
to  what  we  call  "Western  civilization,"  a  real  value. 

Biologically,  the  essence  of  real  personality  is  first 
that  it  is  organized,  and  secondly  that  on  each  of  its 
many  faces  it  can,  if  I  may  put  it  metaphorically, 
enter  into  action  at  a  single  point,  but  with  its  whole 
content  of  energy  available  behind  the  point.  In 
other  words,  man  as  a  personality  can  concentrate 
his  mind  on  one  particular  problem  of  one  special 
aspect  of  reality;  but  he  is  able,  if  need  be,  to  sum- 
mon up  ever  fresh  reinforcements  if  he  cannot  carry 
the  position — more  facts,  other  ways  of  thinking  and 
feeling,  memories,  reserves  of  will.  In  a  properly 
organized  personality,  it  is  possible  to  bring  the 
whole  to  bear  upon  any  single  object. 

Now  when  the  idea  which  man  makes  for  himself 
of  outer  reality  is  organized  after  the  same  general 
pattern  as  a  personality,  it  too  will  be  able  to  act  in 
this  same  sort  of  way. 

When  man  in  perplexity  interrogates  the  idea  he 
has  of  external  reality,  he  is  anxious  to  put  his  little 


282  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

individual  self  in  harmonious  relation  with  the  whole 
of  reality  that  he  knows.  Therefore  he  should  or- 
ganize that  reality  as  a  whole,  and  in  such  a  way 
that  it  can  all  be  brought  to  bear  through  any  single 
point.  The  relation  between  the  self  and  the  idea 
of  outer  reality  is,  for  any  one  problem,  that  of  two 
pyramids  touching  by  their  points  only;  but  the 
points  of  contact  can  shift  as  by  miracle  over  their 
surfaces  as  the  problem  is  changed. 

But  another  power  of  personalities  is  their  power 
of  interpenetration.  The  purely  material  cannot  do 
this.  One  portion  of  matter  cannot  occupy  the  same 
space  as  a  second  portion.  It  is  another  of  the  great 
differences  between  the  psychozoic  and  all  previous 
stages  of  evolution,  between  man  and  all  else  that 
we  know  in  the  universe,  that  the  discrete  units 
reached  at  this  level  of  organization,  the  individual 
human  beings,  can  achieve  interpenetration  by  means 
of  their  minds.  When  you  expound  a  new  idea  to 
me,  and  I  grasp  it,  our  minds  have  obviously  inter- 
penetrated. This  is  a  simple  case;  but  there  may 
be  an  intimate  union  of  mind  with  mind  which  is  the 
basis  of  the  highest  spiritual  achievement  and  the 
greatest  happiness.  If  mind  and  matter  are  two 
properties  of  the  same  world-substance,  then  the  rise 
of  mind  to  dominance  has  enabled  this  basic  sub- 
stance to  escape  from  some  of  the  imprisoning  limita- 
tions which  confined  it  at  lower  levels  of  its  develop- 
ment; do  we  not  all  know  that  despair  at  being 
boxed  up,  that  craving  for  communion?     Using  ou; 


RELIGION   AND   SCIENCE  283 

previous  line  of  argument,  we  see  that  the  interpene- 
tration  of  personalities  is  right,  implies  a  further 
step  in  progress,  must  be  part  of  the  basis  on  which 
future  advance  in  evolution  is  to  build. 

But  to  apply  this  to  our  present  point.  By  organ- 
izing our  knowledge  of  outer  reality  after  the  pattern 
of  a  personality,  we  make  it  possible  for  it  to  inter- 
penetrate our  private  personality.  If,  therefore,  we 
have,  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word,  "found  religion," 
it  means  that  we  shall  so  have  organized  our  minds 
that,  for  flashes  at  least,  we  attain  to  a  sense  of  inter- 
penetration  with  the  reality  around  us — that  reality 
which  includes  not  only  the  celestial  bodies,  or  the 
rocks  and  waters,  not  only  evolving  life,  but  also 
other  human  beings,  also  ideas,  also  ideals. 

This,  to  my  mind,  is  what  actually  happens  when 
men  speak  of  communion  with  God.  It  is  a  setting, 
an  organizing  of  our  experiences  of  the  universe  in 
relation  with  the  driving  forces  of  our  soul  or  mental 
being,  so  that  the  two  are  united  and  harmonized. 
There  is  a  resolution  of  conflicts,  an  attainment  of  a 
profound  serenity,  a  conviction  that  the  experience 
is  of  the  utmost  value  and  importance. 

Up  till  now,  we  have  been  defining  and  analysing: 
here  we  see  religion  in  operation.  It  is  a  relation 
of  the  personality  as  a  unit  to  external  reality  as  a 
unit — and  a  relation  of  harmony.  First,  the  inner 
structure  of  the  mind  must  be  organized  into  a  har- 
monious unit,  then  our  knowledge  of  outer  reality 
organized  similarly,  and  finally,  in  religious  experi- 


284  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

ence,  the  two  must  be  harmonized  in  interpenetrat- 


mg  union. 


Once  this  harmony  has  been  achieved,  it  is  for  one 
thing  so  precious  in  itself  that  it  will  be  sought  for 
again;  the  knowledge  that  we  have  once  reached  the 
stage  at  which  difficulties  and  doubts  are  resolved  in 
what  the  philosophers  would  perhaps  call  a  higher 
unity,  but  which  I  should  prefer  to  call  an  organic 
harmony,  is  always  there  to  fall  back  upon  in  times 
of  discouragement;  and  finally  the  harmony  is  ac- 
tually woven  into  the  tissue  of  our  mind,  just  as  the 
amazing  physical  harmony  revealed  by  physiology 
has,  in  the  course  of  evolution,  been  woven  into  the 
structure  and  working  of  living  bodies;  and  it  can 
remain  there  as  the  dominant  idea  to  which  the  rest 
of  our  ideas,  and  consequently  our  actions,  are 
brought  into  subordinate  relation.  In  other  words, 
it  becomes  the  dominant  sublimating  principle. 
Once  more,  however,  the  subordination  is  not  forced, 
but  free — we  find  that  what  we  once  thought  ob- 
stacles are  aids,  what  once  seemed  sin  is  now  the  will- 
ing and  efficient  handmaid  of  good.  That  is  the 
fundamental  fact  in  all  genuine  and  valuable  re- 
ligious experience  as  such — the  resolution  of  conflict 
and  the  losing,  or  enlarging  as  you  will,  of  the  private 
personality,  the  mere  "self."  You  will  find  this  set 
out  more  fully,  though  in  different  terminology,  in 
Miss  Underhill's  books  on  mysticism,  or  in  William 
James's  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  or  in 
Thouless's  Psychology  of  Religion. 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  285 

One  side-issue.  Such  experience,  if  not  absolute 
in  the  philosophical  sense,  is  absolute  for  us.  If  1 
may  be  Irish,  its  absoluteness  is  relative  to  our  organ- 
ization and  to  reality  as  we  perceive  it.  We  cannot 
perceive  anything  fuller,  more  absolute — until  per- 
haps one  day,  with  the  growth  of  our  minds,  we  come 
to  have  some  still  richer  and  more  complete  experi- 
ence. As  William  James  was  so  fond  of  reminding 
the  world,  we  have  no  right  to  assume  that  our  minds 
are,  much  less  that  they  must  be,  the  highest  type  of 
mind  realized  in  the  universe — no  more  right  than 
our  domestic  animals  have,  although  our  minds  to 
them  could  only  be  measured  by  their  own  standards. 

What  is  more,  owing  to  our  power  of  framing 
general  concepts  and  ideals,  and  of  accumulating  past 
and  future  in  our  present,  we  can  focus  a  vast  deal 
to  one  point.  In  such  experiences,  whether  they 
come  through  religion,  or  love,  or  art,  we  may  say 
that  although  we  are  but  a  system  of  relations,  we 
touch  the  Absolute — although  we  are  mortal,  we 
mount  to  the  Eternal  for  a  moment.  Only,  to  guard 
against  error,  we  must  remember  that  it  is  obviously 
not  in  reality  the  Absolute  or  the  Eternal  that  we  at- 
tain to,  but  only  the  nearest  approximation  to  them 
of  which  we  are  capable. 

We  can  therefore  sum  up  this  second  part  of  our 
investigation  by  saying  that  religion,  to  be  more 
than  mere  ritual,  must  involve  the  possibility  of  har- 
monizing the  parts  of  the  soul,  of  wiping  out  the 
sense  of  sin,  of  sublimating  instinct,  of  rendering  the 


286  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

subconscious  reservoirs  of  energy  and  being  avail- 
able for  the  personal  self,  and  of  organizing  the  ideas 
of  external  reality  into  a  single  organized  mental 
whole — the  idea  of  God — capable  of  reacting  with 
the  personal  self  by  interpenetration. 

Although  he  was  moving  to  quite  other  conclu- 
sions, it  is  worth  recalling  James's  ideas.  For  in- 
stance, "The  line  of  least  resistance  ...  is  to  accept 
the  notion  .  .  .  that  there  is  a  God,  but  that  he  is 
finite.  .  .  .  These,  I  need  hardly  tell  you,  are  the 
terms  in  which  common  men  have  usually  carried  on 
their  active  commerce  with  God;  and  the  Monistic" 
[sc.  Absolutist]  "perfections  that  make  the  notion  of 
him  so  paradoxical  practically  and  morally  are  the 
colder  addition  of  remote  professorial  minds  oper- 
ating in  distans  upon  conceptual  substitutes  for  him 
alone."     (James,  W,  p.  311.) 

I  may  perhaps  be  rebuked  for  trying  to  analyse  the 
unanalysable,  for  neglecting  the  supreme  and  suffic- 
ing fact  of  experience  of  God  in  favour  of  the  un- 
profitable and  impossible  task  of  catching  the  in- 
finite in  an  intellectual  net.  There  are  two  answers 
to  this.  One  is  that  unanalysed  experience  is  selfish 
because  less  communicable:  with  that  we  deal  later. 
The  other  is  even  more  important:  it  is  this.  Hu- 
manity at  large  is  not  content  with  emotional  ex- 
perience alone,  however  complete  and  apparently 
satisfying:  it  has  always  demanded  an  intellectual 
formulation  of  the  reality  with  which  it  is  in  contact, 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  287 

as  well  as  emotional  experience  of  it,  and  so  far  as 
we  can  judge  it  will  always  continue  to  do  so. 

But  it  is  further  found,  as  matter  again  of  general 
experience,  that  such  formulations  do  not  remain 
innocuous  in  the  vacuum  of  pure  intellect,  but  re- 
verberate upon  action  and  influence  conduct.  When 
men  believe  that  they  are  surrounded  with  magical 
powers,  they  spend  half  their  lives  in  ritual  designed 
to  affect  the  operations  of  these  (wholly  hypothet- 
ical) influences.  When  they  worship  a  God  whom 
they  rationalize  as  man-like,  they  sacrifice  a  large 
proportion  of  their  produce  on  his  altars,  and  may 
even  kill  their  fellow-creatures  to  placate  his  (again 
imaginary)  passions.  When  they  believe  in  a  Di- 
vine Revelation,  they  think  that  they  possess  com- 
plete enlightenment  on  the  great  problems  of  life  and 
death;  and  they  will  then  cheerfully  burn  those  who 
differ  from  them,  or  embark  upon  the  bloodiest  wars 
in  defence  of  this  imaginary  certainty.  When  they 
worship  God  as  absolute  and  as  a  person,  they  can- 
not help  making  deductions  that  lead  them  into  ab- 
surdities of  thought  and  of  conduct:  they  deny  or 
oppose  ideas  derived  from  a  study  of  nature,  the 
only  actual  source  of  knowledge,  because  they  con- 
flict with  what  they  believe  to  be  immutable  truths, 
but  are  in  reality  conclusions  drawn  from  false  prem- 
isses; they  tend  to  an  acquiescent  and  obscurantist 
spirit  in  the  belief  that  such  moral  and  intellectual 
laziness  is  "doing  God's  will,"  when  that  will  is  in 


288  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

reality  their  own  personification  of  cosmic  direction. 

Sooner  or  later,  false  thinking  brings  wrong  con- 
duct. Man  can  perhaps  get  along  with  empirical 
methods  and  ideas  which  turn  out  on  analysis  to  be 
only  symbols,  provided  that  he  does  not  attempt  diffi- 
cult construction.  He  can  have  some  sort  of  a  re- 
ligion, which  will  be  some  sort  of  a  help  to  him,  even 
when  its  so-called  certitudes  are  only  a  collection  of 
mixed  metaphors,  in  the  same  way  as  he  can  practise 
agriculture  on  a  basis  of  mingled  empiricism  and 
superstition.  But  just  as  he  is  finding  that  he  is  only 
able  to  raise  agricultural  efficiency  to  its  highest  pitch 
by  relying  on  the  result  of  scientific  method,  as  when 
he  uses  synthetic  nitrates  instead  of  ploughing  in  a 
leguminous  crop,  or  just  as  a  power-station  would 
be  very  difficult  to  run  if  the  staff  had  only  symbolic 
ideas  on  the  nature  of  electricity  no  closer  to  the  real 
than  is  the  symbolism  of  most  religions,  so  if  he  does 
not  bring  scientific  analysis  into  the  intellectual  side 
of  his  religion,  he  cannot  realize  religious  possibili- 
ties. True  that  in  a  sense  all  knowledge  and  intellec- 
tual presentation  is  symbolic:  but  there  is  the  world 
of  difference  between  the  merely  analogical  symbol- 
ism which  takes  one  idea  or  thing  as  symbolic  of  an- 
other because  there  is  some  degree  of  similarity  be- 
tween the  two  and  the  first  is  more  familiar,  and  the 
scientific  symbolism  which  strives  to  find  a  scientific 
counter,  so  to  speak,  which  shall  represent  particular 
phenomena  as  closely  as  possible,  and  them  alone. 

Not  only  this,  but  religion  unillumined  by  reason 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  289 

degenerates  into  an  evil  thing.  Religion  seems  to  be 
a  natural  activity  and  need  of  the  average  human 
mind.  But  when  its  more  primitive  components  are 
allowed  to  dominate,  when  the  instinctive  and  emo- 
tional in  it  are  unchecked  by  reflection  and  rational 
thought,  then,  as  history  too  clearly  shows  us,  it  be- 
comes a  cruel  and  obstructive  power.  To  the  fine 
mind  of  Lucretius,  the  religion  that  he  knew  was 
the  greatest  enemy: — 

"Quae  caput  a  caeli  regionibus  ostendebat 
Horribili  super  aspecta  mortalibus  instans." 

And  he  replies  to  the  charge  of  impiety  by  pointing 
to  the  foul  deeds  perpetrated  by  religion: 

" — Quod  contra  saepius  ilia 
Religio  peparit  scelerosa  atque  impia  facta." 

Many  another  thinker  and  reformer  has  felt  the  same. 
There  are  those  who,  like  Jung,  believe  that  re- 
ligion is  an  illusion  but  also  a  necessity  to  the  bulk 
of  mankind,  and  therefore  should  be  encouraged. 
But  the  broader  and  truer  view,  I  believe,  is  the  one 
we  have  adopted.  We  have  seen  that,  in  man,  evo- 
lution has  reached  a  new  plane,  on  which  not  only 
have  new  aims  and  values  appeared,  but  the  possi- 
bility of  new  and  better  evolutionary  methods  has 
arisen.  These  new  methods  are  only  possible,  how- 
ever, in  so  far  as  life,  in  man,  uses  her  new  gifts. 
The  progress  of  civilization  is  a  constant  conflict 
between  that  part  of  man  which  he  shares  with  the 
beasts  and  that  part  which  is  his  alone— between 
man  as  no  more  than  a  new  kind  of  animal  and  man 


290  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

as  a  rational  and  spiritual  being.  In  so  far  as  reli- 
gion is  irrational,  it  is  no  more  than  a  dog  baying  the 
moon,  no  higher  activity  than  the  nocturnal  concerts 
of  Howler  monkeys,  no  more  and  no  less  moral  than 
the  nobility  of  birds  or  beasts  to  a  strangely-marked 
or  unusually-built  member  of  their  species,  or  the 
sense  of  being  a  trespasser  so  often  shown  by  a  bird 
that  has  ventured  upon  the  nesting-territory  of  an- 
other. Recall  the  "Natural  Religion"  of  Robert 
Browning's  Caliban;  on  which  plane  did  that  grow? 
But  when  we  have  discovered  its  real  bases,  and  sub- 
ordinated its  impulsive  promptings  to  the  control  of 
reason  and  of  the  new,  higher  values  in  which  reason 
must  always  share — then  it  becomes  an  instrument 
for  helping  in  the  conquest  of  the  new  regions  which 
lie  open  to  man  as  individual  and  as  species.  And 
in  this  it  resembles  every  other  human  activity  with- 
out exception. 

In  religion  the  danger  has  always  been  that  an- 
alogy and  symbolism  be  taken  for  more  than  they 
are — for  scientific  knowledge,  or  even  for  an  absolute 
certainty  of  some  still  higher  order — and  conclusions 
then  drawn  from  it.  The  conclusions  follow  with 
full  syllogistic  majesty:  but  their  feet  are  of  clay — 
their  premisses  are  false. 

If  we  fmd  that  this  is  the  case  to-day,  we  not 
only  may  but  we  must  endeavour  to  make  our  for- 
mulation correspond  more  closely  with  reality,  must 
not  be  content  to  take  one  thing  in  place  of  another, 
the  familiar  for  the  unfamiliar,  must  set  about  de- 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  291 

stroying  the  old  false  formulation  for  fear  of  the 
further  harm  that  it  will  do  by  its  hold  upon  man's 
incurable  habit  of  drawing  conclusions. 

Nor  does  this  in  any  way  interfere  with  or  detract 
from  the  private  and  unique  experiences  that  in  the 
long  run  are  religion.  They  remain;  but  they  are 
thus  hindered  from  becoming  draped  with  delusion, 
from  leading  their  possessor  into  false  courses. 

We  may  put  it  in  another  way.  Too  often  in  the 
past,  religious  experience  has  been  one-sided — one- 
or-other-sided  instead  of  two-sided.  The  intellec- 
tually-inclined, the  theologians,  frame  more  or  less 
adequate  ideas  of  external  reality,  but  fail  in  the 
majority  of  cases  to  set  their  own  house  in  order,  to 
organize  the  inner  reality  to  react  with  the  outer; 
they  have  theory  without  practice,  are  Dry-as-dusts. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  emotionally-minded  who  are 
gifted  besides  with  organizing  and  intuitive  power, 
the  mystics — they  build  up  their  own  souls  into  a 
desired  and  lovely  edifice,  in  which  too  they  have 
constructed  a  spiritual  machinery  capable  of  viewing 
external  realities  on  a  new  plane,  under  a  more  highly 
synthesized  aspect;  but  they  neglect  the  precise 
analysis  of  that  outer  reality,  and  so  can  only  speak 
in  the  barest  symbols  and  metaphors,  and  cannot  put 
their  hard-won  knowledge  into  a  form  available  for 
others.  They  have  that  non-communicable  skill 
which  is  that  of  the  craftsman  alone  as  opposed  to 
the  craftsman  who  is  also  in  some  degree  a  scientist. 
We  know  good  mysticism  from  bad,  as  we  know  good 


292  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

art  from  bad — as  definitely  and  as  personally.  And 
we  are  sure  that  good  mysticism,  like  good  art,  is 
somehow  of  supreme,  transcendent  importance;  but 
almost  always  it  has  remained  like  a  purely  symbolic 
art,  not  having  for  others  the  value  which  it  should 
have  or  did  have  for  the  mystic  himself,  because  not 
properly  enchained,  as  the  French  say,  with  stern 
and  immutable  fact.  And  of  the  theologian  we  feel 
that  he  gives  us  the  grammar,  not  the  spirit,  that 
he  does  not  help  us  toward  the  supremely  important 
act  of  experiencing,  but  only  to  understanding  ex- 
perience if  we  chance  to  have  had  it. 

One  word  on  the  problem  of  transcendence.  The 
mystic  will  tell  us  that  transcendence  is  a  hall-mark 
of  religion  at  its  highest.  His  mode  of  experience 
transcends  normal  experience;  things  of  everyday  life 
become  surcharged  with  new,  transcendent  values; 
he  has  transcended  from  a  plane  of  disharmony  to 
one  of  harmony.  But  the  mystic  is  not  alone  in  this. 
Familiar  examples  are  best  examples:  and  the  trans- 
cendence of  the  lover's  experience  is  so  familiar  that 
all  mankind  is  divided  into  those  who  have  it,  those 
who  long  for  it,  and  those  who  laugh  at  it.  But  the 
great  philosopher  too  must  mediate  between  the 
transcendent  and  mankind,  and  the  true  artist  also, 
and  the  moralist  worthy  of  the  name. 

What  goes  under  this  technical  name  of  trans- 
cendence, therefore,  is  the  product  of  some  special 
psychological  mechanism  which  may  be  at  work  in 
the  most  diverse  spheres.     It  we  wish  to  substitute 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  293 

one  technical  phrase  for  another,  we  can  say  that  it 
consists  in  the  successful  attachment  of  what  we  have 
called  absolute  value  to  some  human  activity,  so  as 
to  make  it  for  the  time  at  least  unitary,  dominant, 
and  all-embracing.  But  psychologically  speaking 
the  genesis  of  "absolute  values"  depends  upon  the 
generalizing  of  particular  values;  the  raising  of  them 
to  the  highest  possible  pitch;  and  the  putting  of 
them  and  the  rest  of  the  mental  organization  into  a 
relation  in  which  they  are  permanently  or  tempora- 
rily the  dominating  head  and  front,  and  are  con- 
nected with  and  gain  strength  and  support  from  all 
the  rest  of  the  mind. 

The  problem  of  transcendence,  in  other  words,  is 
not  one  of  divine  inspiration,  of  wholly  mysterious 
experience,  but  one  special  case  of  the  problem  of 
sublimation;  and  as  such  it  is  to  be  investigated  by 
psychological  science,  to  be  understood,  to  be  democ- 
ratized, to  be  made  more  available  to  all  who  wish 
for  it. 

The  most  ardent  enemies  of  traditional  religion 
have  often  professed  the  most  transcendental  type  of 
morality.  Some  men  are  pragmatic  and  utilitarian 
in  regard  to  Truth;  by  others  she  is  worshipped  as 
fanatically  as  any  goddess.  So  some  men  deliber- 
ately make  mariages  de  convenance ;  to  others,  the 
transcendence  of  their  love  is  such  that  they  precipi- 
tate themselves  into  what  can  only  be  described  as 
mariages  d'inconvenance. 

I  have  dilated  upon  this  at  some  length,  because 


294  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

those  whom  we  may  call  the  religious  writers  on  re- 
ligion so  often  lay  such  stress  on  this  question  of 
transcendence  and  its  special  value  and  importance. 
But  you  do  not — in  the  long  run  at  least — make  a 
thing  more  important  by  giving  it  an  imposing  title; 
you  only  give  it  a  false  exclusiveness. 

Transcendence  is  the  experimental  side  of  what 
we  have  been  describing  all  along:  it  is  the  finding 
of  unity  in  diversity,  the  synthesis  of  discord  in  har- 
mony and  in  especial  the  finding  of  something  of  su- 
preme value  (and  therefore  dominant)  which  can  be 
linked  up  with  the  whole  extent  of  our  mental  being. 
Transcendence  in  religion  differs  from  transcendence 
in  art  or  love  only  in  its  objects.  In  love  the  dis- 
crepancy between  the  object  and  the  ideal  values 
hung  round  it  is  often  so  glaring  as  to  provoke  laugh- 
ter from  cynics,  compassion  from  the  rest.  In  art, 
the  operations  by  which  an  artist  turns  a  collection  of 
mean  and  commonplace  objects  into  a  beautiful  and 
single  whole,  a  poet  invests  failure  and  death  with 
authentic  tragedy,  or  drags  every-day  to  a  seat  in 
eternity,  are  just  as  transcendent  as  that  by  which 
the  mystic  converts  the  relation  between  the  warring 
passions  of  his  soul  and  the  infinite  catalogue  of 
differences  which  he  finds  around  him  into  what  he 
can  only  speak  of  as  a  divine  communion,  all-satis- 
fying in  itself,  all-important  for  the  conduct  of  his 
life.  Science  can  here  help  religion  by  analysing  and 
interpreting  phenomena  such  as  transcendence,  par- 
ing the  false  from  the  true,  cutting  down  false  claims, 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  295 

substituting  the  hopefulness  of  natural  causation  for 
the  illogical  vagaries  of  supernaturalism  and  incom- 
municability. 

H:  3|c  4c  4(  34e  4c  4e 

I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  close  with  a  few  more 
practical  aspects  of  the  problem. 

Many  religious  ideas  and  practices,  as  man's 
thought  clarified  itself,  have  proved  to  be  unservice- 
able, and  have  been  thrown  on  the  lumber-heap,  or 
left  only  with  the  losers  in  the  race.  It  is  impossible 
for  any  educated  man  nowadays  to  believe  in  the 
efficacy  of  magic,  or  of  animal  sacrifice;  to  accept  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  as  literally  true;  or  to  be- 
lieve that  God  has  human  parts  and  passions.  But 
there  was  a  time  when  all  these  could  be,  and  were, 
believed. 

The  time  is  obviously  coming  when  a  great  many 
other  ideas  must  be  cast  aside  in  favour  of  new  ones. 
If  you  have  followed  me,  you  will  agree  that  it  is 
impossible  for  me  and  those  who  think  like  me  to 
believe  in  God  as  a  person,  a  ruler,  to  continue  to 
speak  of  God  as  a  spiritual  Being  in  the  ordinary 
way.  Consequently,  although  the  value  of  pra\'er 
persists  in  so  far  as  it  is  meditative  and  a  self-puri- 
fication of  the  mind,  yet  its  commonly  accepted  peti- 
tive  value  must  fall  to  the  ground;  ^  so  must  all  idea 
of  miracle  and  of  direct  inspiration;  so  must  all  that 
is  involved  in  the  ordinary  materialist  ideas  of  ritual, 
self-denial,  and  worship  as  merely  propitiation  or 

®  See  Turner,  '16. 


296  ESSAYS   OF   A   BIOLOGIST 

"acceptable  incense";  so  must  all  the  externally- 
projected  parts  of  the  ideas  concerning  the  ordaining 
of  special  priests;  so  must  all  notion  of  our  having 
a  complete,  peculiar,  or  absolute  knowledge  of  God, 
or  of  there  being  a  divinely-appointed  rule  of  con- 
duct or  a  divinely-revealed  belief. 

On  such  matters,  most  advanced  thinkers  have 
been  long  in  general  agreement.  But  there  is  one 
very  important  point  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
been  very  little  touched  upon — chiefly,  I  think,  be- 
cause such  radical  thinkers  have  been  for  the  most 
part  destructive,  and  so  have  not  envisaged  this  par- 
ticular side  of  the  question. 

I  hope  I  have  been  able  to  convince  you  that  the 
scientific  manner  of  thinking  can  lay  the  foundation 
for  something  constructive  in  religion:  this  great 
problem,  however,  remains:  what  sort  of  form  or  or- 
ganization shall  any  such  new-moulded  religion  take 
on  itself? 

We  have  just  decided  that  fixed  and  rigid  dogma 
is  impossible,  and  that  completeness  is  out  of  the 
question.  Yet  humanity  craves  for  certainty  and 
is  not  content  to  leave  any  factor  out  of  the  scheme 
of  things. 

To  this  we  answer  that  it  is  here  that  real  faith 
enters.  We  cannot  know  the  absolute,  nor  have  we 
discovered  a  goal  for  our  efforts.  But  we  have  dis- 
covered a  unity  embracing  all  that  we  know,  and  a 
direction  starting  at  the  first  moment  to  which  our 
reconstructive  thought  can  penetrate,  continuing  till 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  297 

to-day,  and  showing  an  acceleration  of  speed  on 
which  we  may  raise  our  hopes  for  the  future. 

We  do  not  know  all.  For  instance,  I  have  stu- 
diously avoided  ever  mentioning  the  word  ivimortal- 
ity,  since  I  believe  that  Science  cannot  yet  profitably 
discuss  that  question.  But  the  discovery  of  unity 
in  all  that  has  so  far  been  studied  gives  us  reasonable 
faith  that  its  wings  will  reach  out  to  cover  all  that 
we  shall  still  be  enabled  to  learn,  while  the  unbroken 
continuity  of  evolutionary  direction  gives  us  the  same 
sort  of  right  to  believe  that  it  will  continue  to- 
morrow and  on  into  time  as  we  have  to  believe  that 
apples  will  continue  to  fall  to  the  earth. 

The  study  of  evolution  may  give  us  a  further  help. 
We  have  seen  how  the  final  steps  of  the  highest  forms 
of  animals  have  been  in  the  direction  of  plasticity  of 
organi'zation :  we  see  it  in  the  rise  of  man  from  mam- 
mals, in  higher  as  against  more  primitive  levels  of 
human  culture,  in  great  men  as  against  ordinary 
men.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  its  acquisition 
constitutes  a  step  in  evolutionary  progress.  Plastic- 
ity is  needed  in  any  new  religion.  And  plasticity 
means  tolerance,  means  the  reduction  of  fixity  of 
ritual,  of  convention,  of  dogma,  of  clericalism. 

It  is  clear  that,  as  complexity  increases,  need  will 
be  felt  for  a  finer  adjustment  of  satisfaction  to  mood, 
a  more  delicate  adaptation  of  religion  to  the  indi- 
vidual. A  few  types  of  ceremony  satisfied  primitive 
races:  an  elaborate  system,  fixed  in  essence,  fiuctuat- 
ing  in  detail,  has  grown  up  in  modern  Christianity. 


298  ESSAYS   OF   A    BIOLOGIST 

But  the  more  complex  the  mind,  the  less  does  it  like 
to  have  to  "wait  till  Sunday" — the  less  is  it  satisfied 
with  the  solely  biblical  point  of  view,  or  the  literary 
and  musical  level  of  Hymns  A.  and  M. 

The  less  also  is  it  satisfied  with  the  mediation  of 
a  priest.  Priest  (or  Priest-King)  is  sole  mediator 
in  most  savage  tribes:  his  mediation  is  enormously 
important  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church:  less  so  in 
Protestant  Churches :  until  with  the  progressive  rais- 
ing of  the  spiritual  and  cultural  level,  it  is  perhaps 
possible  that  he  may  become  an  obstacle  instead  of 
a  help.  Mediators  there  must  always  be.  They 
are  the  great  ones — prophets  and  poets,  heroes,  phi- 
losophers, musicians,  artists,  and  all  who  discover  or 
interpret  or  display  what  for  the  ordinary  man  is 
hidden  or  difficult  or  rare.  They  mediate  between 
the  utmost  attainable  by  man  and  man  in  the  lump. 
As  Hegel  says  of  one  group  of  these  mediators,  the 
artists,  it  is  the  function  of  their  art  to  deliver  to  the 
domain  of  feeling  and  delight  of  vision  all  that  the 
mind  may  possess  of  essential  and  transcendent  Be- 
ing. But,  with  the  spread  of  invention  and  the 
change  of  civilization,  their  mediations  are  becom- 
ing more  and  more  readily  accessible  to  all.  I  can 
get,  on  the  whole,  more  satisfactory  mediation  from 
three  or  four  feet  of  properly  filled  bookshelf  than 
from  a  dozen  priests.  Milton  will  give  me  doctrine 
if  I  want  it,  but  stupendously:  Wordsworth  will 
reveal  nature:  Shakespeare  the  hearts  of  men: 
Blake  can  put  men  into  a  mystical,  Shelley  into  an 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  299 

intellectual  ecstasy,  while  Keats  and  a  dozen  others 
can  open  universal  doors  of  beauty.  What  is  more, 
if  I  have  had  the  mediation  of  wise  parents  and  good 
teachers,  or  to  be  so  fortunate  as  to  be  enthusiastic, 
I  fmd  that  in  many  things  I  can  be  my  own  mediator, 
in  the  same  way  as  the  Protestant  found  that  he 
could  read  his  Bible  and  eat  the  holy  bread  and  wine 
for  himself  as  well  or  better  than  the  priest  could  do 
it  for  him. 

Whatever  we  may  say  or  like,  it  is  an  obvious  fact 
that  much  of  what  is  essential  in  religious  experience, 
which  in  a  simpler  society  was  only  attainable  in 
prayer  and  sacrifice,  communal  ceremony  or  ritual 
worship,  is  now  attainable  to  an  increasing  degree 
through  literature,  music,  drama,  art,  and  is,  again, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  so  attained  by  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  people  who  do  not  profess  a  creed  or  belong 
to  a  church.  So  that,  as  regards  the  personal,  indi- 
vidual side  of  religion,  many  of  the  functions  of 
Churches  will  inevitably  be  better  performed  through 
direct  contact  between  the  individual  and  the  medi- 
ator— philosopher,  poet,  artist,  or  whatever  he  be — 
who  provides  the  experience. 

There  remains  public  worship  and  community- 
religion.  It  is  clear  that  whereas  a  Church  in  the 
Middle  Ages  was  not  only  Church  but  also  Museum 
of  curiosities.  Art-gallery  and  Theatre,  and  in  large 
measure  also  took  the  place  of  our  press  and  public 
libraries,  now  it  is  none  of  these  things.  There  is 
now  less  reason  for  public  worship,  fewer  functions 


300  ESSAYS   OF    A    BIOLOGIST 

for  it  to  perform.  On  the  other  hand  a  religion  is 
essentially  in  one  aspect  social,  and  not  only  does 
the  unity  of  nature  demand  a  unity  of  religion,  but 
such  unity  of  religion  would  be  of  the  highest  im- 
portance as  a  bond  of  civilization  and  a  guarantee  of 
the  federalist  as  against  the  solely  nationalist  ideal. 
Moreover,  to  many  types  of  mind,  and  to  almost  all 
men  in  certain  circumstances,  the  partaking  in  a 
public  religious  ceremony  in  common  with  others 
is  of  real  importance.  It  is  safe  to  say,  therefore, 
that  these  ceremonies  will  continue,  however  much 
modified,  and  that  for  them  a  mediator  or  priest,  even 
if  but  temporarily  acting  as  such,  will  be  needed. 
The  problem  is  largely  that  of  combining  in  public 
w^orship  the  religious  effectiveness  of  the  simple,  the 
hallowed,  and  the  universally  familiar — such  as  in- 
heres in  many  of  the  prayers,  psalms,  and  hymns  of 
the  Church  to-day — with  the  spontaneity  and  imme- 
diacy which,  for  instance,  are  to  be  found  at  a  devo- 
tional meeting  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 

In  any  case,  the  new  intellectual  premisses  once 
granted,  the  limitations  imposed  on  human  mind  once 
understood,  the  important  thing  is  to  give  a  greater 
vigour  and  reality  to  religious  experience  itself, 
whether  personal  and  private  or  social  and  public. 
It  is  just  here  that  Science  may  help,  where  knowl- 
edge may  be  power.  Atonement,  conversion,  sense 
of  grace,  ecstasy,  prayer,  sacrifice — the  meaning  and 
value  of  these  and  of  other  religious  acts  and  ex- 
periences can  be  put  on  a  proper  psychological  basis, 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  301 

they  can  be  shorn  of  excrescences,  and  their  practice 
take  its  place  in  normal  spiritual  development.  That 
is  of  the  essence  of  any  religion  rooted  in  scientific 
ideas — that  comprehension  should  make  practice 
easier  and  better  worth  while. 

I  am  only  too  painfully  aware  of  the  omissions 
which  such  a  cursory  treatment  of  the  subject  in- 
evitably involves.  I  have  given  you,  I  know,  little 
but  dry  bones;  but  bones  are  the  framework  neces- 
sary before  impatient  life  can  animate  a  new  form. 
If  Science  can  construct  that  form,  the  emotions  and 
hopes  and  energies  of  humanity  will  vivify  and  clothe 
it.  It  is  with  the  aid  of  such  intellectual  scaffolding 
that  the  common  mind  of  humanity  in  the  future, 
inevitably  rooted  in  scientific  conceptions  as  it  will 
be,  must  try  to  raise  that  much-desired  building,  a 
religion  common  to  all. 

In  any  case,  I  shall  be  more  than  content  if  I  have 
been  able  to  persuade  you  first  that  the  term  God, 
just  as  much  as  the  terms  Energy,  say,  or  Justice, 
has  a  real  meaning  and  scientifically-based  sense. 
Second,  that  the  idea  of  God  has  and  will  continue 
to  have  an  important  biological  function  in  man  as 
denoting  an  idea,  organized  in  a  particular  way,  of 
the  whole  of  the  reality  with  which  he  is  in  contact. 
Thirdly,  that  the  physical  and  biological  sciences,  in 
discovering  the  unity  of  matter  and  energy,  and  the 
direction  operating  in  cosmic  evolution,  have  pro- 
vided a  real  basis  for  what  up  till  now  ha\'e  been  only 
theological  speculations.     Fourthly,  that  ps)cholog- 


302  ESSAYS   OF    A   BIOLOGIST 

ical  science,  in  revealing  some  of  the  mechanism  of 
mind,  is  helping  us  to  appreciate  the  value  of  so- 
called  mystical  experience,  is  laying  a  foundation  for 
the  proper  spiritual  training  and  development  of  hu- 
man mind,  and  shows  us  how  the  idea  of  God  may 
be  efficaciorus  as  a  dominant  idea  in  the  all-important 
process  of  sublimation.  And  finally  that,  since  the 
scientific  mode  of  thought  is  of  general  and  not 
merely  local  or  temporary  validity,  to  build  a  re- 
ligion on  its  basis  is  to  make  it  possible  for  that  re- 
ligion to  acquire  a  stability,  a  universality,  and  a 
practical  value  hitherto  unattained. 

We  are  yet  at  the  very  beginning  of  that  task,  but 
I  cannot  close  better  than  by  reminding  you  of  an- 
other biological  fact  of  importance,  that  from  all 
analogy  the  human  species  is  yet  near  the  beginning 
of  its  evolutionary  career,  and  that  man  has  before 
him  vast  tracts  of  time  to  set  against  the  vastness  of 
his  tasks. 

A  chapter  in  the  history  of  Earth  closed  with  the 
appearance  of  Man.  In  man,  the  Weltstoff  had  been 
made  able  to  think  and  feel,  to  love  beauty  and 
truth — the  cosmos  had  generated  soul.  A  new  chap- 
ter then  began,  a  chapter  in  which  we  all  are  char- 
acters. Matter  had  flowered  in  soul.  Soul  has 
now  to  mould  matter. 

That  moulding  of  matter  by  spirit  is,  under  one 
aspect.  Science;  under  another.  Art;  under  still  an- 
other. Religion.  Let  us  be  careful  not  to  allow 
the  moulding  forces  to  counteract  each  other  when 
they  might  be  made  to  co-operate. 


RELIGION    AND   SCIENCE  303 

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